Medical record: baby born from cold embryos 20 years

A healthy baby born from an embryo is kept frozen for nearly 20 years, breaking a record 13 years earlier.

The baby's mother (unnamed), 42, is an American and has been in vitro fertilization for 10 years without success. Then, last year an embryo that was kept frozen for nearly 20 years was implanted in this woman's uterus. The boy was born in May and weighs about 3 kg.

The boy born from an embryo is kept frozen after 20 years weighing 3 kg. (Illustration).

Initially the mother was provided with four embryos, but only two embryos survived. These two embryos are implanted in the mother and eventually only one embryo exists to form the baby.

Dr. Sergio Oehninger - director of the Johns Institute of Reproductive Medicine at Estern Virginia said patients who have received fertility treatment have been unsuccessful for many years, but her persistence paid off.

Research by Dr. Oehninger shows that keeping frozen embryos for a long time does not affect their viability, and it can last for more than 40 years.

Although Oehninger said that a new embryo was used to produce a new generation. This problem happened, in 2007 a mother frozen some of her eggs afterwards for her own daughter to use. If the daughter uses that egg, her child will also own half of her and half of his brother or sister.

The previous record for an implanted frozen embryo was established in 2005 by San Francisco mother of Debbie Beasley, then 45 years old. The embryo later gave birth to baby Laina that was frozen for 13 years. In 2009, a baby girl was born after IVF with sperm that had been frozen and stored for 22 years.

Freezing embryos in liquid nitrogen is a common technique in obstetric clinics, but the amount of time it takes to store frozen embryos varies between countries. Like embryos, eggs, sperm, ovary tissue can also be frozen to help pregnant without having to constantly give samples or create embryos.