India's first frozen oocyte (egg) baby born in Pvt hospital

Chennai, Aug 28 (UNI) India's first frozen Oocyte (egg) baby was born at a private hospital here.

The unique feat was achieved when a 29-year-old woman, whose identity was kept under wraps, gave birth to a 2.5 kg bonnie pre-term boy at the G G Hospital in the city yesterday.

According to Hospital MD and renowned Gynaecologists Kamala Selvaraj and Priya Selvaraj, who jointly performed this rare Ceasaren procedure, several babies were born from frozen embryos.

''But this was for the first time in India that a woman conceived using a frozen Oocyte, an assisted reproductive technology that has a success rate of just two per cent,'' Dr Kamala said.

''In this particular case, the mother had previously conceived an abnormal baby and also gone through a miscarriage earlier.

We helped her have a baby with this new technology called cryopreservation.'' Under this new technology, the eggs were frozen for any period of time as required by the women who donate the eggs or those who needed donor eggs.

''Cryopreservation involves slow freezing process using a cryofreezer and the eggs are then plunged into liquid nitrogen at minus 96 deg centigrade. As and when required, the eggs are brought back to normal temperature and the sperm is injected into the egg to form the embryo,'' Dr Priya Selvaraj said.

The new born baby was shifted to the nursery ward for observation and his condition was stated to be stable.

The woman had chormosomal abnormality, which would render any prgenancy unstable.

As she needed nothing but a donor egg to realise her dream of having her own baby, she made her way to the G G Hospital.

And now there are reasons enough for her to be jubilant.

Dr Kamala said this technology would benefit young women diagnosed with blood cancer and those who wish to postpone childbirth.

''Till date it has been possible to freeze only sperms in the semen banks. But going a step ahead, the GG Hospitals is planning to set up an egg bank,'' she added.

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