An Ohio couple welcomed a baby who was the first to be safely delivered alive from a 30-year-old frozen embryo. Lindsey (35) and Tim Pierce (34) of London, Ohio, welcomed Thaddeus Daniel Pierce into the world on Saturday.
The embryo was produced in 1994 using in vitro fertilisation (IVF), while Tim was still a toddler. In November 2024, it was moved to Lindsey after being cryopreserved in liquid nitrogen for approximately 30 years, reported the BBC.
The embryo was one of the four produced by Linda Archerd, now 62, in 1994. She had implanted one back then and gave birth to a daughter, the report added.
Following a divorce, Ms Archerd preserved custody of the remaining embryos and donated them to Nightlight Christian Adoptions, a Christian embryo adoption organisation that operates the Snowflakes program, the report mentioned.
Speaking to MIT Technology Review, Ms Archerd had said that she would rather consider a married, Christian, white couple who lived in the United States than "go out of the country."
Ms Archerd added, “The first thing that I noticed when Lindsey sent me his pictures is how much he looks like my daughter when she was a baby. I pulled out my baby book and compared them side by side, and there is no doubt that they are siblings.”
According to experts, this instance breaks the previous record, which was set by twins born in Oregon in 2022 from embryos frozen in 1992, the BBC report added.
The percentage of IVF births in the UK rose from 1.3 per cent in 2000 to 3.1 per cent in 2023, or one in 32 births in the country—roughly one child in every classroom, The Guardian reported. IVF accounts for around 2 per cent of births in the US.
