Thursday, October 14, 2010

Woman Has Baby From Embryo Frozen For 20 Years

early human embyros
A 42 year old woman has recently given birth to a healthy baby boy from an embryo that was frozen for 20 years. The baby was born back in May, 2010 and weighed 6lbs 15 oz. The baby was conceived by In Vitro Fertilization (a process involving extracting eggs from the ovaries and fertilizing it with sperm).


The lady who gave birth to the boy has been trying to conceive a child for many years, according to her doctor, Dr. Sergio Oehninger. She was implanted with two 20 year-old embryos, but only one of them made it to full term. Originally there was four of them but only 2 made it through the thawing process.

Her doctor claims that  having embryos frozen for such a long time shouldn't have an impact on their quality. In fact, he says that they could probably be frozen for much longer, under the right laboratory conditions.

Another doctor, Dr. Sherman Silber, who is head of the infertility center of St. Louis, says giving birth from an embryo that was frozen for 20 years isn't really that big of a deal.

"The case is no big deal. We have lots of babies born from embryos that had been frozen over 15 years earlier. There is no legitimate shelf life limit to frozen embryos, or eggs or ovarian tissue for that matter," he explained to AOL Health.
 
I don't think I've ever met anyone that was 20 years old from the moment of birth!

Source: Journal Fertility and Sterility, Physorg.

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