Belated baby

Couples who cannot naturally conceive a child can seek the services of a fertility clinic to help them have a baby through in vitro fertilization (IVF). The technology, however, is very expensive and there is no guarantee of success.

Having a baby through IVF also has its risks, as what recently happened to an Australian mom.

In IVF, a woman’s egg is harvested from her ovary and fertilized in the laboratory using sperm from her husband or a donor. The resulting embryo, preserved by freezing, is then implanted in the uterus of the mother herself or a surrogate to be carried to term.

However, Monash IVF in Brisbane is now at the center of a controversy after a staff member of the fertility clinic implanted the wrong embryo in a client, causing her to give birth to a stranger’s baby.

Details of the case are under wraps to protect the privacy of the couples involved, but Monash IVF has admitted the error and apologized to all affected parties for the blunder.

The mix-up was only discovered after the baby was reportedly born last year. The client wanted to transfer all her embryos to another clinic, and staff learned that the number of her embryos stored in Monash IVF was the same when one should have already been used, the clinic said on 11 April, ABC News reports.

In the ensuing inventory, it was learned that an embryo from another patient had been mistakenly thawed and transferred to the birth mother, the clinic’s spokesperson told ABC News.

Meanwhile, German mom Alexandra Hildebrandt delivered a healthy baby boy by cesarean section last month.

The child, named Philipp, Hildebrandt’s 10th, amazed fertility doctors, who called his birth and her natural pregnancy very rare.

Hildebrandt is 66 years old, with her eldest child aged 46 and her youngest, prior to Philipp, aged 2, Today and New York Post (NYP) reported.

Experts say the only way women can successfully conceive and give birth after menopause — which normally occurs between ages 45 and 55 — is with the assistance of hormones and medical intervention, according to NYP.

Also, pregnancy at such an old age is prone to complications, Dr. Brian Levine, a practice director at New York City’s fertility clinic CCRM, told Today.