The world’s “oldest baby” has been born in the US from an embryo that was frozen in 1994, it has been reported.
Thaddeus Daniel Pierce was born on 26 July in Ohio to Lindsey and Tim Pierce, using an “adopted” embryo from Linda Archerd, 62, from more than 30 years ago.
In the early 1990s, Archerd and her then husband decided to try in vitro fertilisation (IVF) after struggling to become pregnant. In 1994 four embryos resulted: one was transferred to Archerd and resulted in the birth of a daughter, who is now 30 and mother to a 10-year-old. The other embryos were cryopreserved and stored.
“We didn’t go into it thinking we would break any records,” Lindsey told the MIT Technology Review, which first reported the story. “We just wanted to have a baby.”
No, the embryo existed for 30+ years, not just an egg. This is also a demonstration of how properly frozen embryos remain viable for decades if necessary/desired; from what I have been told it’s actually a little harder to freeze only eggs.