Oopsie! Woman Implanted With Someone Else’s Twin Embryos In IVF Mix-Up

A woman in Rome became pregnant after undergoing a fertility treatment, but three months later she was informed that she was carrying another couple’s twins. Sorry lady. You’re housing and nurturing the wrong babies. Two of them.

Four couples received treatment at the Sandro Pertini Hospital in Rome on December 4. USA Today reports that it’s “unclear whether any other improper pregnancies resulted.” There are no definitive reports about how the mix-up happened, Rome’s health authority said it learned there was a “genetic incompatibility” between the parents and embryos on March 27.

I understand that there is such a thing as “human error,” but in situations like this it seems that there should be many, many checks to make sure that something like this does not happen. This isn’t the first time a mix-up like this has occurred: according to the USA Today article a San Francisco woman learned of a similar mistake 10 months after her baby was born. In that case the doctor realized his mistake but didn’t reveal it. Didn’t reveal it!

Carrying someone else’s child isn’t strange – people do it all the time. But it certainly is terrible if it’s not something you are prepared to do, and have been through treatments to become pregnant with your own. Can you imagine this? Wondering if one of your embryos may have been implanted in someone else as well? Not to mention the fact that this woman has to carry and give birth to twins. That aren’t hers. If you haven’t signed up for this I imagine the whole ordeal would be really traumatic.

The country’s health ministry is now investigating, and no further implantations are being done at the clinic.

If couples are at the point where they are using infertility treatments I think it’s pretty safe to assume they’ve been through some difficulties conceiving. Everyone knows how difficult it is to have a successful IVF, then you do and you learn you are growing someone else’s children? So, she has a successful IVF but the kids actually aren’t hers. That is unbelievably awful. Hopefully she will be successful again in the future because if she has to go through a pregnancy and childbirth and still doesn’t get to birth any kids of her own that would just be heartbreaking.

(photo: Image Pt Fr/ Shutterstock)