A woman has given birth to a stranger's baby, after the wrong embryo was implanted while she was receiving IVF treatment. Melbourne-based fertility company, Monash IVF, made the discovery in February when an extra embryo was found in storage.
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00:01The mistake occurred at the Monash IVF clinic here in Brisbane.
00:06Now Monash IVF is blaming human error for the transferring of the wrong thawed embryo to the wrong parents.
00:13Now Monash says it was alerted to this incident back in February
00:17when the birth parents requested that the remainder of their embryos be transferred to another provider.
00:23It's when the clinic went to do so that they discovered that there was additional embryos.
00:28Now an investigation has been launched and that's when the error was uncovered.
00:33Now Monash IVF has apologised to both sets of parents for this mix up.
00:38They say they're devastated by what's happened and will support these parents
00:42through what is an extremely distressing time.
00:45Now they say they have conducted a review of their processes
00:49and are confident that this is an isolated incident.
00:53Now experts the ABC has spoken to says that this may be an Australian first
00:59although similar incidents have occurred overseas.
01:02In the US last year there were reports that two separate parents had their embryos swapped.
01:09Now those babies were born and then raised by the wrong set of biological parents for a number of months
01:15before they had to make the really awful decision to swap them back.
01:19We've of course seen a number of errors in IVF here in Australia.
01:23We've seen the incidences of the wrong sperm being used for the wrong parents
01:28which has raised concerns about the need for genetic testing.
01:32And late last year Monash IVF actually settled a class action lawsuit
01:37for around $56 million over allegations that it used inaccurate genetic testing
01:43and that it also destroyed viable embryos.
01:47Now although Monash IVF settled in that case they were not required to admit liability.
01:53Now experts are at pains to say that these errors do happen but they are extremely rare.