Nigeria Records First Successful Birth From Frozen Egg

Nigeria has recorded its first successful birth from the frozen egg of a 44-year old woman  at the Bridge Clinic, a Lagos based fertility centre. The male child, named Tiwatope who is also the first baby born through this process in West Africa, was born on February 16th 2016.

Basically, egg freezing involves extracting a woman’s egg and keeping it for later use by her. When the woman is ready, the egg is fertilized, thawed, and put back into her womb to be delivered by her.

Explaining the process, Dr. Emmanuel Owie a fertility specialist at the Bridge Clinic said:

Tiwatope’s mother had her eggs frozen for two months, using the vitrification, also known as flash-freezing, process. This is the cutting edge technology in cryobiology, where the eggs or oocytes of a woman is dehydrated and the water content is replaced with ‘anti-freeze’ solution (cryoprotectants) before freezing. This will prevent the formation of ice crystals which could destroy the cell.

We fertilized the eggs using a standard technique known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to overcome the egg shell which normally gets hardened with freezing. The fertilized egg was subsequently transferred into her womb, resulting in the pregnancy with Tiwa. She had her antenatal care in her family hospital and delivered the baby boy through Caesarian Section

According to USC Fertility, a Los Angeles based fertility clinic, there are about 5000 babies have been born from frozen eggs. The report also said a study carried on 900 babies born from frozen eggs showed that none of the babies showed increased rate of birth defects when compared with the general population.

Source: The Nation