New York: In a historic first, an American couple welcomed twins from embryos that were frozen more than 30 years ago, in April 1992.
The twins, dubbed as ‘world’s oldest babies’, were born on October 31 to Rachel and Philip Ridgeway.
According to the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC), the twins — Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway — are the longest-frozen embryos to result in a live birth. Baby girl Lydia weighed 2.5 kg at birth, while baby boy Timothy weighed 2.92 kg.
The previously known record-holder was Molly Gibson, who was born in 2020 from an embryo that had been frozen for nearly 27 years, reported CNN.
The babies were a result of embryo donation, usually from parents who have extra embryos after successfully having babies via in vitro fertilization (IVF).
An anonymous donor couple who had used in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) donated the embryos, which were cryopreserved at 200 degrees below zero. The embryos, frozen on April 22, 1992, remained in cold storage at a fertility lab until 2007, when the couple donated them to the NEDC.
The Ridgeway couple already had four children, aged 8, 6, 3 and 2 years. They decided to have more kids by using donated embryos.
When they looked for donors, the couple showed interest in the ‘special consideration’ category, which means embryos for whom it had been difficult to find recipients.
“We weren’t looking to get the embryos that have been frozen the longest in the world. We just wanted the ones that had been waiting for the longest. There is something mind-boggling about it. In a sense, they’re our oldest children, even though they’re our smallest children,” Philip Ridgeway told CNN.
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