Woman Gives Birth to Surrogate Baby
australian Fertility Clinic Apologizes After Embryo Mix-Up Leads to Birth of Wrong Baby
BRISBANE,Australia – An Australian woman gave birth to a child who is not biologically related to her after a significant error occurred at a fertility clinic. The clinic has issued an apology for the incident.
The incident occurred at Monash IVF in Brisbane. Clinic staff incorrectly transferred an embryo to the woman during an in-vitro fertilization (IVF) procedure, according to reports from The Guardian and CNN.
The error came to light in February when the biological parents requested the transfer of their remaining embryos to a different IVF clinic.The clinic discovered an extra embryo remained in storage.
“Instead of finding the expected number of embryos, ther was still an extra embryo stored,” the company stated.
An internal examination confirmed that an embryo belonging to another patient was mistakenly thawed and implanted in the woman, who later gave birth. The clinic attributed the error to human error.
“Everyone at Monash IVF is devastated, and we unreservedly apologize to all parties involved,” said Michael Knaap, CEO of Monash IVF, in a statement.
The biological parents were notified of the error within a week of its discovery. The clinic has commissioned an external legal review of the incident and pledged to implement all resulting recommendations.
This is not the first instance of controversy for Monash IVF. In August, the company reached a $56 million settlement with over 700 former patients following allegations of embryo damage during flawed genetic screening processes, according to The Guardian.
Similar incidents have occurred in the United States, according to CNN. In February, a woman discovered she had been implanted with the wrong embryo after giving birth to a child with different physical characteristics.