Last Tuesday, a healthy baby was born in Mexico to a Jordanian Couple.[1] What makes this birth so spectacular is that this child technically has three parents. This was the first live birth of a child using a technique that is banned in the United States.[2]
This technique involves traditional sperm and egg, plus additional DNA from a third party donor and used when one parent has mutated mitochondria that would affect the child’s health.[3] The mitochondria are separate from the DNA that determines a child’s inherited traits so, if the mitochondria contain mutations, this can result in fatal diseases that often kill babies with a few years.[4]
In order to do this, DNA is removed from the egg of the mother containing the mutated mitochondria, and is placed into the egg of a healthy donor after removing that donor’s nuclear DNA. That egg is then fertilized.[5]
Initially, the couple had gone through two bouts of trial and error through a less invasive technique, but their first child died at age 6, and the second at 8 months.[6] The couple was then referred to a fertility center in Mexico since this procedure is banned in the United States.[7]
This successful birth raises the question of when this technique will become legal in the United States? Plenty of other countries are implementing this procedure and are far past the research stage.[8] For many couples, this is the only way to conceive a healthy child. Perhaps if the United States doesn’t lift this ban on this procedure, many more couples will be going abroad to conceive.
[1] Gina Kolata, Birth of ‘3-Parent Baby’ a Success for Controversial Procedure, N.Y. Times, Sept. 28, 2016, at A4.
[2] Id.
[3] Id.
[4] Id.
[5] Kolata, supra.
[6] Id.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.