Duck Dynasty’s Bella Robertson Details Fertility Journey
The future of fertility is here.
As part of an IVF technique legalized a decade ago in the U.K., doctors told the BBC, eight babies have been born using the genetic material from three separate people in an effort to prevent the continuation of devastating and fatal mitochondrial diseases—passed down from mother to child—to future generations.
And now, after four boys and four girls have been born using this three-person technique free of mitochondrial disease, there is finally proof that the method has been successful.
“After years of uncertainty this treatment gave us hope,” one mother told the Newcastle Fertility Centre, per the BBC, where the procedures took place, “And then it gave us our baby.”
“We look at them now,” she continued, “full of life and possibility. We’re overwhelmed with gratitude.”
In another case, a mother who suffers from a mitochondrial disease, which can lead to a baby’s death within days of being born, expressed how thankful she is to have broken the generational cycle.
“Thanks to this incredible advancement and the support we received, our little family is complete,” the mother of a baby boy told the fertility center. “The emotional burden of mitochondrial disease has been lifted, and in its place is hope, joy, and deep gratitude.”
As for how the process works? Well, the goal is to battle defective mitochondria that can leave the body with insufficient energy to keep the heart beating, according to the BBC. Mitochondrial disease can also lead to brain damage, seizures, blindness, muscle weakness and organ failure.
So, Newcastle University and the Newcastle Upon Tune Hospitals NHS Foundation trust opened a specialist service in 2017 that fertilizes eggs from both the mother and a donor with the dad’s sperm.
Photo by Jennifer Polixenni Brankin/Getty Images
The embryos then develop until the DNA from the sperm and egg form a pair of structures called the pro-nuclei, per the BBC, which contain the blueprints for building a person’s physical attributes. Once these are formed, the pro-nuclei are removed from both embryos and the parents’ DNA is put inside the embryo packed with healthy mitochondria.
As a result, the couple ends up with a genetically related child without the risk of passing down a potentially life-threatening disease. So far, reports in the New England Journal of Medicine show, per the BBC, that 22 families have gone through the process.
“To see the relief and joy in the faces of the parents of these babies after such a long wait and fear of consequences,” Bobby McFarland, the director of the NHS Highly Specialised Service for Rare Mitochondrial Disorders, told the BBC, “it’s brilliant to be able to see these babies alive, thriving and developing normally.”
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