Brit mom gives birth to '80s boy!

LONDON: In an extraordinary medical advance, a "child of the eighties" has been born to a British couple who used sperm frozen for a record 21 years.
The healthy baby boy, from 21-year-old sperm, is thought to be the world’s first instance of long-term freezing ending in a live birth.
Ingredients for the so-called "freezer baby" were put into the deep freeze the very year that Louise Brown, the world’s first test-tube baby was born.
It’s thought to be the oldest sperm ever used in a successful IVF experiment.
Commentators said the implications were potentially enormous for a 24/7 culture in which people want to travel and enjoy themselves while young and postpone having children to their mid-to-late 30s.
The sperm was frozen because the then 17-year-old father was just about to start infertility-causing treatment for testicular cancer. The man wanted to retain the chance of having a biological child.
News of the "21-year-old baby" broke with the force of a thunderclap on Tuesday, through the journal Human Reproduction.
Doctors at the Manchester hospital, which conducted the procedure for the happy parents of the "21-year-old baby" couple said their success proved one can "successfully preserve sperm quality and fertility".
Interestingly, the long time lag between freezing the sperm and using it actually assisted the outcome. This, because the technique used to inject the sperm into the egg was only developed in 1992, 13 years after the sperm was originally frozen.
On Tuesday, wondering medical experts said the birth of the "21-year-old baby" appeared truly remarkable. The father got married after he was cured of cancer and the couple tried to have a baby through IVF in the late 1990s. Three attempts failed but at their fourth attempt, enough embryos were produced to be frozen. Two of the embryos were thawed and transplanted into the womb in 2001. A successful pregnancy was the outcome and a lusty squalling son the final result.
Dr Elizabeth Pease, a consultant in reproductive medicine at the Manchester hospital, said the development is "important because we believe this is the longest period of sperm cryopreservation resulting in a live birth so far reported in the scientific literature".
But at least one senior embryologist at a London hospital said the news was "welcome but not hugely surprising (because we knew this through) animal studies".
However, the embryologist said the safe birth of a healthy baby "reassured" the world about freezing sperm for use when needed.