30-year-old frozen embryos
Twins born from frozen embryos 30 years ago have arrived at the home of an Oregon couple, breaking the previous record. Another couple donated this embryo in 1992. Earlier in 2020, a baby named Molly Gibson was born from a frozen embryo. The embryo was frozen 27 years ago. Twins from Oregon are being called the ‘oldest babies in the world.’ A boy and a girl were born to Rachel Ridgeway and Phillip Ridgeway on October 31. News from CNN.
According to the US National Embryo Donation Center, two children born from frozen embryos have been named Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway. Lydia’s birth weight was 2.5 kg and Timothy’s weight was 2.92 kg.
After IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) procedure:
The embryos are donated by an anonymous couple when they are left over. IVF or test tube method is a method of insemination outside the human body. From April 22, 1992, the embryo was stored below 200 degrees Celsius. Later, since 2007, the embryo has been stored in a West Coast laboratory. 15 years later, Lydia and Timothy were born.
The Ridgeway couple already has four children, ages 8, 6, 3, and 2. They decided to have more children using frozen embryos. “We didn’t find any embryos that had been frozen the longest,” the Ridgeway couple told CNN. But what happened is extraordinary. On the one hand, they are our youngest children, but they are the oldest children in terms of age.
Philip said, ‘I was only five years old when Lydia and Timothy were born. Since then God has preserved their lives.’
Harvard Medical School expert Ellen S. Glazer says many embryos created through IVF have five possible futures. These are—wasting it, parents can have more children, donating the embryo for scientific research, donating it to another couple, and not making a decision about these.