Woman terminates pregnancy after embryo mix-up

A Massachusetts woman decided to terminate her pregnancy conceived via IVF last year after discovering the embryo transferred was not one genetically related to her.

Fearing a custody battle after childbirth the couple decided to end the pregnancy at six months, days before it would have become illegal to do so. The couple is now suing the clinic where they had received IVF, New York Fertility Institute, which is also under investigation from the New York state health department, New York Post reported. Referred to as Jane and John Doe in a lawsuit filed on 25 March in Manhattan Federal Court, the lawsuit accuses the clinic of either losing or failing to disclose if the couple's embryo had been transferred into another person, Washington Post reported.

According to the lawsuit: 'Defendants' misconduct robbed Ms Doe of the ability to carry her own child.

'Ms Doe and Mr Doe are haunted by questions about what became of their embryos. They have needed to worry about whether their embryos were transferred to another unwitting couple, and whether they have another child or children out in the world whom they have never met?'

The lawsuit also alleges the clinic had failed to disclose that the clinic's embryologist, Michael Obasaju, had previously transferred the wrong embryo into a patient in 1998, Metro reported. This incident had led to a custody case involving a woman who gave birth to twins: one white, her own, and one black, from an embryo from another couple (see BioNews 276).

In the current case the error was first discovered after the woman's obstetrician recommended a form of NIPT (non-invasive prenatal testing) called Panorama screening to assess the fetus risk for chromosomal abnormalities. The tests results came back reading: 'No results due to uninformative (suspect nonmatching) maternal/fetal DNA patterns.'

Dr Khalid Sultan, the fertility specialist responsible for the woman's IVF, initially suggested this result was either due to a laboratory error or 'mosaicism', meaning that two types of DNA were present in her body. He suggested the test be run again but the same result came back for the second test as well. Dr Sultan continued to assure the couple that a mistake could not have occurred. He ordered tests for mosaicism, but those came back negative.

After this discovery the couple obtained the services of an independent embryologist who wanted to meet with staff at the clinic to obtain evidence that the embryo transferred into Ms Doe was the couple's, the Washington Post said. With the date for the legal limit for pregnancy termination in the state approaching, the couple decided to end the pregnancy.

The couple are seeking unspecified damages and want a judge to order the clinic to reveal what happened to their embryos.