- Woman implanted with wrong embryo in Rome hospital mix-up
- Both couples believe the twins are rightfully theirs
- Italian law states woman who gives birth is legal mother
- But judge may make an exception in this case
- Biological mother fell pregnant after mistake, but tragically miscarriedÂ
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An Italian judge will decide who are the legal parents of IVF twins whose embryo was implanted into the wrong mother, a Rome court heard today.
In a case which has gripped the country, two couples are fighting for the custody of the babies born on Sunday, whose fertilised embryos were mixed up in a Rome hospital.Â
The devastating error was only discovered when the woman, who has not been named, was three months pregnant, and she decided to keep the babies.
Two couples are fighting over who are the parents of twins after a mix-up in a Rome hospital led to a woman being implanted with another couple’s embryo via IVF
The genetic mother of the twins also became pregnant shortly after, but tragically miscarried early on, and the fate of her children is now out of her hands.Â
Legally she and her partner have no claim to the unborn children, as Italian law specifies that the mother is the woman who gives birth to the baby, but it is possible the judge may make an exception in this case.Â
Judge Silvia Albano told an hour-long hearing that he needed more time to consider whether the biological parents had the right to demand custody of the children.
Italian law states that the mother is the woman who gives birth to the child, but Judge Silvia Albano told a court that he may make an exception in this case
The two disputing families have very similar names, sharing five of seven letters, according to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, which could be the reason for the mix-up.
Despite deciding to take the pregnancy to term, the couple still intend to sue and file charges against the hospital, their lawyer Michele Ambrosini said.
When the babies were born, the biological parents said they were ‘happy that everything went well’ even though ‘we did not have the pleasure of holding our newborns in our arms’.
But the other couple told the daily La Stampa: ‘We feel their pain and we are also suffering. We suggested that we all meet but they have never come back to us.’
The woman who gave birth said in April on hearing that the babies were not hers: ‘I had a moment of human rejection when I knew that they were not mine, or rather ours, that the embryos that I was carrying were of another woman, but then we decided that the pregnancy had to continue, our values are these.
‘These children live inside me. I heard them beat on my heart. They grow and are healthy,’ she told her lawyer. ‘How can I decide the fate of two creatures so long-awaited?’
The couples were among four prospective parents receiving fertility treatment at the same specialist unit of a Rome hospital on the same day last December.
At the time, the error led the hospital to halt all embryo implantations.
WHAT IS IVF AND HOW DOES IT WORK?Â
IVF, or in vitro fertilisation, literally means fertilisation in glass, and is used when a woman is struggling to conceive naturally and when other methods of assisted reproductive technology have failed.
A woman’s eggs are taken from her ovaries, and sperm are taken from a man, and they are introduced to each other via fluid in a laboratory. The eggs are fertilised.
Laboratories are able to examine embryos to decipher which are the strongest and most likely to bear a child. Once fertilised, the embryo is then reinserted back into the woman’s uterus, as continues to grow as normal.Â
The process does not always work, in fact, the chances are roughly 50/50, depending on the age of the woman. A woman under the age of 35 has around a 48 per cent chance of getting pregnant through IVF, while that falls to 20 per cent for a 42-year-old.Â
The first successful birth of a ‘test tube baby’ occurred in 1978, and created a woman called Louise Brown.Â
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