Baby born from embryo frozen for 20 years

A 42-year-old woman has given birth to a baby boy from an embryo frozen for nearly 20 years, according to the scientific journal Fertility and Sterility.

An embryo has never been frozen for so long and then been successfully implanted in a womb.

The baby was born in May after his mother was treated at the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia. The woman's doctor, Sergio Oehniger, said she had been receiving fertility treatments for 10 years.

The embryo, frozen for 19 years and seven months, came from an anonymous couple that had donated it to the centre after they completed their own fertility treatments.

A total of five embryos were thawed and two survived and were implanted in the mother, with one being successful.