Girl is born in US from embryo frozen for 27yrs

NEW RECORD

Girl is born in US from embryo frozen for 27yrs

Maria Cramer  05.12.2020

In 1992, Tina Gibson was nearly 2 years old when a couple donated embryos that were frozen in a clinic in the US. In February 2020, one of those embryos was implanted in Gibson, an elementary school teacher in Tennessee, and in October, she gave birth to a baby. Gibson and her husband, Ben, named her Molly.

The birth broke the record for the longest frozen embryo to result in a live birth. That record, according to the National Embryo Donation Center in Tennessee, was set in 2017, when Molly’s older sister, Emma, was born after an embryo from the same donor couple was implanted in Gibson. “We feel so blessed,” Gibson said.

Molly’s birth is the result of a process that began when an embryo was frozen on October 14, 1992. It was thawed in February 2020, the longest time an embryo had been frozen before it led to a live birth, said Martha Earl, director of the University of Tennessee Preston Medical Library. She said she had researched medical journal articles and had “found no published case in a medical journal of a live birth” of an embryo that had been frozen more than 20 years.

Molly’s birth shows that there is not a limited length of time an embryo can be frozen, said Dr Jeffrey Keenan, director of the National Embryo Donation Center, a Christian organisation that performed the transfers.

“If the embryo survives the thaw well, it should have just as good a chance as freshly created embryo,” he said. “No embryo is too old.” Dr Sigal Klipstein, director of the egg donor programme at In-Via Fertility Specialists, said the only issue is the quality of the embryo at the time of freezing. NYT NEWS SERVICE