'FROZEN' TWINS BORN IN SINGAPORE
WebPosted Fri Dec 29 11:38:07 2000

SINGAPORE--The world's first babies to be conceived from both frozen 
eggs and sperm have been born. 

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 Cheng Li Chang, the doctor who pioneered the technique, told a news 
conference that this birth will give hope to couples where both partners 
have fertility problems. 

 There have already been some 30 births worldwide from frozen eggs, the 
first was in Australia in 1986. Frozen sperm have also been used in 
successful births, but doctors say this was the first case in which both 
reproductive cells were frozen. 

 Difficulty conceiving 

 Dr. Cheng, deputy chair of the Thomson Medical Centre, said both members 
of the couple had medical difficulties when it came to reproduction. The 
father's semen contained no sperm, and the mother could only ovulate 
with the help of drugs. 

 So the medical team extracted sperm from the father's testes. It took 
four hours to find just eight usable sperm. 

 At first the doctors tried using the frozen sperm to fertilise the 
mother's non-frozen eggs, but the attempts failed. So the eggs were 
frozen for future use. 

 The first attempt using both frozen eggs and sperm ended in miscarriage, 
but the next led to a successful birth. 

 The entire procedure took 16 months and cost the couple about $11,550 
US. 

 
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