Couples who have had children through in vitro fertilization often are left with additional frozen embryos. Other couples who choose to adopt these embryos have a good chance of becoming pregnant. That’s according to a study published in the online journal Fertility and Sterility.
Of the women in the study who received donated embryos, 35.5 percent carried at least one baby to term. When women use their own frozen embryos, that number varies from 22 percent to 32 percent.
“We wanted to know the pregnancy rates were because that would be a very important thing to be able to tell a couple, especially since we’re trying to promote this as a life-affirming option," co-author Dr. Reginald Finger said.
“The message that it sends us is, that if a couple want to adopt an embryo, they have got a good chance of having a baby.”
An estimated 400,000 embryos are frozen in storage in the U.S. Proponents of embryonic stem-cell research claim those embryos will die anyway and should be used for research.
Not so, said Dr. Jeffrey Keenan, medical director of the National Embryo Donation Center.
“We’ve had embryos that have been frozen for 14 years that have resulted in normal pregnancies and children," he said. "We don’t have a time limit on how long these embryos can be frozen.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Learn more about the Snowflakes Frozen Embryo Adoption Program.
(NOTE: Referral to Web sites not produced by Focus on the Family is for informational purposes only and does not necessarily constitute an endorsement of the sites' content.)
