Baby Girl Born From Frozen Egg

Scientists have been able to produce babies from frozen embryos for years and it is considered a standard, run-of-the-mill IVF treatment. Sperm samples can be easily frozen and then thawed for later use in clinics, and this is a relatively simple procedure.

Doctors have had less luck using frozen eggs as most of them die during or after the freezing process. If an egg does survive this, it usually dies while being thawed. They had also never used eggs collected after a natural cycle (such as those in no-stimulation IVF) because the majority of eggs used are collected after drug stimulation to induce ovulation, so it was not known whether these eggs would be of good enough quality. It is also much more difficult to collect eggs without drug therapy.

However, some women are contraindicated to drugs which stimulate ovulation, such as those women with womb or ovary cancers, adhesions on the womb or polycystic ovarian syndrome. These are all causes of infertility, yet sufferers of these conditions are limited to what IVF techniques they can have.

Now doctors at the McGill Reproductive Center, Montreal, Canada, have perfected the procedure of creating an embryo using a previously frozen egg, collected from a natural cycle.

The woman had polycystic ovarian syndrome and had been unable to have conventional drug therapy. She successfully carried a pregnancy and gave birth to a baby girl, who is reported to be healthy. There are also three other women at the center who are currently pregnant and whose pregnancies are going well.

There had been 20 women enrolled in the study, aged around 30, who all had polycystic ovaries and were infertile as a result. 296 eggs were collected from all the women, of which a huge 290 were immature due to being harvested naturally (doctors have to guess when to harvest them when they aren't controlling the cycle with drugs). They were then frozen and later thawed. 148 eggs survived the thawing and were fertilized using ICSI. 64 viable embryos were created, resulting in four successful pregnancies including that of the baby girl.

Dr Hananel Holzer said,

'It was not known whether oocytes collected from unstimulated ovaries, matured in vitro and then vitrified, could survive thawing, be fertilised successfully and result in a viable pregnancy after embryo transfer. We have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible to do this.'

However, no cancer sufferers' eggs were used in the study so they have no idea whether they would get the same positive results in women with cancer, and the treatment is still considered experimental.

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