Two twins have been born 30 years after their embryos were frozen in what experts believe is a new world record.

The embryos which led to the birth of Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway were frozen in 1992, the year Bill Clinton ran for the Presidency in the US and Vanessa Williams' 'Save the Best for Last' topped the Billboard 100 charts.

They were born on October 31st in what their parents Philip and Rachel called a 'mind-boggling' birth.


They said the twins were their 'oldest children' - the couple have four others - even though they are less than a month old. The embryos were frozen for an anonymous married couple in April 1992 who were undergoing IVF and using a 34-year-old egg donor, CNN reported. The husband was in his early 50s.

They sat in storage in liquid nitrogen at -128c (-200f) in liquid nitrogen in a fertility lab on the West Coast of the US until 2007 when the couple donated them to the National Embryo Donation Center in Knoxville, Tennessee. They hoped another family could use them, a process called embryo donation.

Their hopes were answered when the Ridgeways, from Portland, Oregon, wanted to have more children. Mr Ridgeway said they deliberately chose the embryos with the earliest donor numbers. He said: 'We weren't looking to get the embryos that have been frozen the longest in the world. 'We just wanted the ones that had been waiting the longest'.

The embryos were thawed on February 28th this year.
Of the five that were thawed, two were not viable and Mrs Ridgway had the other three implanted into her in March, 29 years and 10 months after they were frozen. Two of the transfers were successful and the children were born in October. Lydia was born at 5lbs 11oz, and Timothy was 6lbs 7oz.

The Ridgeways have four other children aged eight, six, three and one, none conceived via IVF or donors.

Dr Jim Toner, a fertility specialist in Atlanta, likens it to an old story: 'It doesn't seem like a sperm or an egg or embryo stored in liquid nitrogen ever experiences time. It's like that Rip Van Winkle thing. It just wakes up 30 years later, and it never knew it was asleep'.

Can this work in Nigeria?

I wish there’s a way to avoid deaths.
The world needs that

If I tell you say I understand wetin dem write up there. Na lie! Na lie! Na lie! I dey lie.

But I read these new born babies are the oldest. If I am the other children, we will not agree untill our birthright is restored. We won't settle for less mehn

Yet in my Africa, they still go to fetish doctors and con men miracle workers when they can’t conceive, whereas science has since made the seemingly impossible very possible.

Something in me is expecting that "Pastor" Righteousness

faithfull18:
Can this work in Nigeria?

seh light dey ni

It is invention dat will kill man las las.
No Understanding No Mention [NUNM]

So that means if they reached gestation period of 9months, they would have been born either in 1992 or 1993.
Oyibo people will not confuse me with science

Amazing..

I will not respond yet until pastor Chris calculates the geometric progression of such using Pythagoras

Funny enough, I read about this not too long in reproductive and developmental anatomy we did this semester

To keep ordinary fish inside freezer for naija here, NEPA will humble you.



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This is just awesome. Science be doing the most and humbling charlatans all over the world!

Drop a like if you appreciate science.

These babies are actually older than some Nairalanders.

Power of science

Those babies cheated nature.

If those babies grow they will add the extra 30yrs to their age to buttress the point that they have been in this world but were been stored some where.


Science is good

Somebody should call Niaraland's pastor to come and say something.

They arw still babies. If an egg is stored for long it only hibernating.

There are some animals that can hibernate for months even years.

If only humans can hibernate themselves we would have lived 500 to 1000 years.

Wonderful!!!!

Good news, science keeps getting better.