A woman with infertility gives birth to her baby in Greece with the 'technique of the three parents'

The one known as 'three parents technique', which requires an ovum from the mother, the sperm of the father and another ovum from a donor woman, was developed in the United Kingdom to help families affected by serious hereditary diseases and manage not to transmit the pathology.

But now It has been used for the first time in a case of infertility and not for problems with inherited diseases. And, after the birth of the baby this week, controversy has arisen.

Experimental Fertility Technique

As we reported in Babies and More in March, fertility experts from the Embryotools clinic, in Barcelona, ​​and the Institute of Life in Athens, they had used a procedure very novel experimental, known as Maternal Spindle Transfer (MST), to get a Greek woman to get pregnant.

The 32-year-old mother had low ovarian response after being operated twice for endometriosis and had already undergone four unsuccessful in vitro fertilization attempts. The baby was born on April 9 with a weight of 2.9 kg and both the mother and the child are well.

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It is not the first time it is used: the first baby with this technique was born in Mexico in 2016 .. But it is the first time it is used in an infertility case.

In Mexico, the baby's mother's ovules contained a mutation that caused Leigh's syndrome, a progressive neurological disease, responsible for the death of her first two children. With this innovative procedure, doctors managed to get the baby born without that genetic disease.

But, according to expert sources, its use as a fertility method has not very clear ethical and medical connotations. Irene Cuevas, embryologist and member of the board of directors of the Spanish Fertility Society, called for prudence in statements made to BBC News, since "It is a very complex technique."

In the same vein is Tim Child, medical director of the Fertility Partnership fertility clinics: "The risks of the technique are not fully known. They can be considered acceptable if they are used to treat mitochondrial disease, but not in this situation.".

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Biology doctor Gloria Calderón, director and co-founder of Embryotools, understands but does not share the doubts: "I have every right to choose as a woman and human being how I want to reproduce and with what genetic material."

"The only solution this couple had was to resort to donor eggs and forget about having a genetically yours child. What we do with this procedure is to give them the possibility of having a genetically yours child."

In addition, the doctor also refuses to call this technique of 'three genetic parents', since it ensures that "the baby does not have the ovum donor's nuclear DNA but mitochondrial DNA that, according to his analysis, is present in less than 1% in the child."

It is not possible in Spain

The technique is only legally approved since 2015 in the United Kingdom. In 2016, Embryotools obtained permission from the Greek authorities to start the pilot clinical trial, the result of which the first baby was born this week.

According to the researchers at the center, located in the Technology Park of Barcelona, "Maternal Spindle Transfer is one of the mitochondrial replacement therapies that in recent years have been investigated for the prevention of diseases that affect mitochondria, the cellular organelles found in the cytoplasm of the cell and that are responsible for supply energy to it. "

"The technique consists in extracting the meiotic spindle (nucleus) of an unfertilized oocyte from a patient carrying mitochondrial DNA mutations, and introducing it into the ovule of a donor with healthy mitochondria, from which its original nucleus has previously been extracted. Then, the resulting oocyte is fertilized with the couple's sperm. "

But although those responsible for Embryotools point out that they are open to being able to carry out a trial of these characteristics in Spain, the project is not immediately feasible.

Law 14/2006, of May 26, on assisted human reproduction techniques does not specifically prohibit this technique, but it establishes in an annex the authorized practices and also provides a special permit for other techniques not contemplated. Thus, the first step should be to obtain the endorsement of the National Commission of Assisted Human Reproduction.

“The transfer of maternal spindle is an experimental technique in the validation period. All in all, we have to be cautious. It cannot be incorporated into the routine of any assisted reproduction clinic overnight. It requires special technology and extensive training of researchers with a long learning curve ”concludes Dr. Gloria Calderón, co-founder and director of Embryotools.