A baby has been born after becoming the longest-frozen embryo after being cryopreserved for 24 years.
Wait a minute, what are you talking about?
We guess a little explanation is needed, so we’re consulting online health resources to help out.
Embryo: When a virile sperm meets a matured egg during sex or artificial means, fertilisation occurs and a zygote is formed. Scientists say this zygote divides and begins development but is not considered an embryo until it is five weeks old. During this embryonic stage, most of the baby’s system begins to form, so it’s a pretty important and critical stage. At five weeks, the size of the embryo is only about the size of the tip of a pen, can you believe that? Amazing? Furthermore, it is not until the embryo is nine weeks, that it is considered a foetus.
Want to know more? Click here or here.
Ok, we got that, what about the other term, cryo…. cryopreservation, yes!
Cryopreservation: It just a way of preserving living tissues using very low controlled temperature. It’s a bit akin to preserving meat in a freezer but it requires more technicality because while your meat is a ‘dead meat’- pardon the pun – cryopreserved materials are alive and you want to not only keep them that way but also ensure their integrity is maintained. By that, we mean their structural and functional characteristics are not damaged in any way. Use this link to know more about it all.
Thanks for that much-needed explanation, now let’s hear the story.
The world’s longest cryopreserved baby has been born and she’s very healthy. She was preserved as an embryo in 1992 and was born this year, 25 years after her fertilisation.
The baby, a girl named Emma Wren Gibson, was born on November 25, 2017, in the US after a medical director, Dr Jeffrey Keenan, of the National Embryo Donation Centre (NEDC) performed a frozen embryo transfer (FET), the Independent reports
Though Emma was delivered this year, she was frozen as an embryo on October 14, 1992.
Tina and Benjamin Gibson had requested for help at the NEDC to help them start a family and they couldn’t be happier.
“Emma is such a sweet miracle,” Benjamin says. “I think she looks pretty perfect to have been frozen all those years ago.”
Carol Sommerfelt, NEDC lab director, recalls the moment the Gibsons first laid their eyes on the embryos during the transfer process.
“I will always remember what the Gibsons said when presented with the picture of their embryos at the time of transfer: ‘These embryos could have been my best friends,’ as Tina herself was only 25 at the time of transfer,” she says.
Many have found the Gibsons’ story very inspiring, as it could signify the potential for even more people to become parents through frozen embryo technology in the future. “Such a precious blessing!!”, one person reportedly writes on Facebook, with another writing: “So amazing!
For the record, Emma isn’t the world’s first baby to be born after being frozen as an embryo, that feat happened some time ago in Australia in 1984, according to the National Fertility Support Centre the Independent also states.
Science is amazing!
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