A baby born from a 27 year old embryo has set a new world record. Molly is believed to have set a new record for the longest-frozen embryo to have resulted in a birth, breaking a record set by her older sister, Emma.
Baby Born From A 27-Year-Old Embryo- Setting A World Record
By
Zainab Pervez in
Amazing
On 8th December 2020
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In 1992, Tina Gibson was nearly 2 years old when a couple donated embryos that were frozen in a clinic in the Midwest.
One of those embryos was implanted in Ms. Gibson, an elementary schoolteacher in Knoxville, Tennessee, in February 2020, and in October, she gave birth to a 6-pound, 13-ounce baby named Molly.
"We're over the moon," Ms Gibson said. "I still get choked up."
"If you would have asked me five years ago if I would have not just one girl, but two, I would have said you were crazy," she said.
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 Ms. Gibson.
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“We feel so blessed that God so long ago decided this was going to be our family,” Ms. Gibson said. “I can’t imagine having any other kids but these kids. They’re just meant to be ours.”
“Found no published case in a medical journal of a live birth” of an embryo that had been frozen more than 20 years says Martha Earl, director of the University of Tennessee Preston Medical Library.
Molly's birth shows that there is not a limited length of time an embryo can be frozen, even though freezing techniques have changed significantly since the 1990s, said Dr. Jeffrey Keenan, director of the National Embryo Donation Center, a Christian organization 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.”
