In the majority of cases, In vitro fertilisation goes smoothly. Even if the cycle fails, it is carried out with precision and professionalism of those medical personnel involved. But just sometimes, things don't go according to plan.
A recipient mother could accidentally have another woman's eggs implanted into her womb without her knowledge, or have her eggs fertilised by sperm which does not belong to her husband. An embryo kept in storage for another couple may be muddled up with her embryo and she could have the wrong one implanted altogether. Contamination of petri dishes is another possibility where one dish could contain two different samples of sperm.
Although rare and unusual, all of these scenarios have happened. In recent years, a UK couple made headlines when the wife gave birth to twins - one black and one white - and it was discovered that the black twin had resulted by contamination from the sperm of another patient at the clinic. Despite being a distressing situation for the couple, the husband decided to raise both twins as his own. Similar cases have occured in the USA and the Netherlands.
In another high profile case, a woman in the USA had become single and decided she wanted to have a child via IVF using anonymous egg and sperm donors. However, the embryologist accidently gave her the embryo of another couple who had been at the clinic. What made this case exceptional was that the doctors involved realised almost immediately what had happened but chose to hide this information from those concerned. An anonymous whistleblower blew the lid on the mix up.
The recipient later found out from the medical board that she had been implanted with the wrong embryo.
She gave birth to a baby boy and the biological parents sued for custody of the child. Pending an outcome to the case, the biological father was granted visitation rights. Four years after the birth, the custody battle is still raging.
The recipient mother was paid over $1 million dollars in compensation by her fertility doctor, as well as a substantial reward from the embryologist. The doctor concerned had his license removed.
The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Department in the UK is now considering electronically tagging or barcoding specimens. An alarm would sound if the wrong eggs and sperm are put near each other.
Double witnessing has also been suggested as a possible solution, where a witness records and logs everything an embryologist does in order to prevent error. It would reduce the number of cases but it is a rather long winded process and still open to human error.
Barcoding is the more popular option with authorities as this system is already in use in the human blood donor service to ensure that the recipient does not recieve the wrong blood type.
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