Woman gives birth to another couple's child after IVF mishap

A woman has unknowingly given birth to another couple’s baby after an IVF clinic gave her the wrong embryo, in the first known case of its kind in Australia in 40 years of IVF treatment.

The error took place at the Monash IVF’s Brisbane clinic in the state of Queensland, where the law recognises the birth mother – the woman who gives birth, not the biological mother – and her partner as the child’s legal parents.

Monash IVF, which runs more than 100 clinics in the country, has apologised and blamed the mistake on human error, saying staff were “devastated”.

It remains unclear whether either couple suspected a mishap before the clinic discovered the error in February.

Monash IVF has not named the couples involved and has declined to answer questions about when the baby was born or who currently has custody, out of respect for the families’ privacy.

“On behalf of Monash IVF, I want to say how truly sorry I am for what has happened,” the clinic’s chief executive, Michael Knaap said in the statement.

“We will continue to support the patients through this extremely distressing time.”

How did it happen?

The mistake was discovered in February after the birth parents requested to transfer their remaining embryos to another IVF provider.

When an extra embryo was found in their storage compartment, an internal inquiry revealed they had received the wrong embryo.

While the exact cause of the error remains unclear, Monash IVF stated that another patient’s embryo had been “incorrectly thawed and transferred to the birth parents”.

Mr Knaap, the company’s chief executive, said he was confident it was “an isolated incident”.

“We are reinforcing all our safeguards across our clinics. We also commissioned an independent investigation and are committed to implementing its recommendations in full,” he added.

Alex Polyakov, a clinical associate professor at the University of Melbourne and fertility consultant at the Royal Women’s Hospital, said it was the first known case of its kind in 40 years of IVF in Australia.

“Australia’s regulatory framework for assisted reproductive technology is internationally recognised for its stringency and thoroughness,” he said in written comments.

“The probability of such an event occurring is so low that it defies statistical quantification.”

The Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) said in a statement that it was “aware of the serious incident” and its immediate thoughts were with the families affected.

It added that such incidents are rare and require “the highest standards of transparency”.

This is not the first time Monash IVF has faced accusations of wrongdoing.

Last year, the company agreed to pay 56 million Australian dollars (£26.5 million) to settle a class action lawsuit filed by 700 former patients.

The patients alleged the company failed to disclose the risk of false positives in genetic testing on embryos, leading them to discard potentially viable ones.

Similar IVF errors have happened in the United States, including a recent case where a white woman discovered she had been given the wrong embryo after giving birth to a black baby.