Woman gives birth to baby from 16-year-old frozen embryo

February 7, 2017 5:28 PM

The woman has another 16-year-old son, who was born through in-vitro fertilization from the same batch of embryos, which were frozen in 2000.

A doctor holds the healthy newborn boy at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, in Guangdong.

China’s adoption of a two-child policy in 2016 has spurred a woman in Guangdong province to give birth to a baby from a 16-year-old frozen embryo, Chinese state media reported on Tuesday.

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A healthy baby boy was born in early February to a 46-year-old woman at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, according to the report.

After China lifted its long-standing one-child policy last year, the woman came back to the hospital and asked to get pregnant again, Xinhua said.

“There were a few issues to handle when she asked to unfreeze her embryos, it was not easy to awaken the frozen embryos because of the freezing techniques,’’ Xu Yanwen, director of the hospital’s reproductive centre said.

More than 1,000 women above 40 years old approached the hospital in 2016 wanting to have more babies, Xu said.

China last year ended its controversial one-child policy, which had been in place since 1979.

Families are now allowed to have a maximum of two children.