Frozen-embryo baby born

Press, 11 March 1985, Page 10

Frozen-embryo baby born

NZPA-AP Manchester Britain’s first test-tube baby from a frozen embryo, a healthy boy, has been born in a Manchester hospital, the “Daily Mail” newspaper reports. The British test-tube baby pioneers, Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards, had implanted the embryo in the womb of Janet Jackson, aged 34, after freezing it in liquid nitrogen for three months, reported the “Mail,” which bought rights to the story.

“He’s a perfect baby, an absolutely lovely little chap,” the father, Tony Jackson, an art teacher, was quoted as saying of his 2.86 kg son, Gregory Martin. The child was born on Saturday in Manchester.

A spokesman at Manchester’s St Mary’s Hospital, where Gregory was born, said that the hospital could give no details. He referred news media inquiries to the Jacksons’ lawyer, who could not be reached. The world’s first frozen embryo baby was born in

Melbourne, in Australia, a year ago. Since then at least five more frozen embryo babies have been born in Melbourne, including twins, and one in Rotterdam, The Netherlands. The newspaper said that in April, Doctors Steptoe and Edwards had removed five eggs from Mrs Jackson, fertilised them with her husband’s sperm, immediately placed three in her womb and froze two. Mrs Jackson, who had tried to have a baby for eight years, had returned to

the Steptoe and Edwards clinic, Bourne Hall, in Cambridgeshire, in June after the first three embryos miscarried, the “Mail” said. The frozen embryos were thawed out. One was defective but the other was implanted in Mrs Jackson’s womb, the paper said. Doctors Steptoe and Edwards were responsible for the world’s first test-tube baby, Louise Brown, born in Oldham, England, on July 25, 1978.