Australian Woman Unknowingly Gives Birth to a Stranger's Baby after IVF Error

FILE - Lab staff prepare small petri dishes, each holding several 1-7 day old embryos, for cells to be extracted from each embryo to test for viability at the Aspire Houston Fertility Institute in vitro fertilization lab Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston.  (AP Photo/Michael Wyke, File)
FILE - Lab staff prepare small petri dishes, each holding several 1-7 day old embryos, for cells to be extracted from each embryo to test for viability at the Aspire Houston Fertility Institute in vitro fertilization lab Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke, File)
TT

Australian Woman Unknowingly Gives Birth to a Stranger's Baby after IVF Error

FILE - Lab staff prepare small petri dishes, each holding several 1-7 day old embryos, for cells to be extracted from each embryo to test for viability at the Aspire Houston Fertility Institute in vitro fertilization lab Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston.  (AP Photo/Michael Wyke, File)
FILE - Lab staff prepare small petri dishes, each holding several 1-7 day old embryos, for cells to be extracted from each embryo to test for viability at the Aspire Houston Fertility Institute in vitro fertilization lab Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2024, in Houston. (AP Photo/Michael Wyke, File)

A woman in Australia unknowingly gave birth to a stranger’s baby after she received another patient's embryo from her in vitro fertilization clinic due to “human error,” the clinic said.
The mix-up was discovered in February when the clinic in the city of Brisbane found that the birth parents had one too many embryos in storage, said the provider, Monash IVF, in a statement supplied Friday. Staff discovered an embryo from another patient had been mistakenly thawed and transferred to the birth mother, The Associated Press quoted a spokesperson as saying.
Australia news outlets reported the baby was born in 2024.
The company, one of Australia’s biggest IVF providers, said an initial investigation had not uncovered any other such errors. Its statement didn’t identify the patients involved or divulge details about the child's custody.
“All of us at Monash IVF are devastated and we apologize to everyone involved,” said CEO Michael Knaap. “We will continue to support the patients through this extremely distressing time.”
The “human error” was made “despite strict laboratory safety protocols being in place,” the statement said. The company said it had reported the episode to the relevant regulator in the state of Queensland.
Monash IVF opened in 1971 and sees patients in dozens of locations throughout Australia. Last year, the firm settled a class action lawsuit from more than 700 patients, making no admission of liability, after claims its clinics destroyed potentially viable embryos.
The clinic paid a settlement of 56 million Australian dollars ($35 million).
Rare cases of embryo mix-ups have been reported before, including in the United States, Britain, Israel and Europe. A woman in the US state of Georgia in February filed a lawsuit against a fertility clinic after she gave birth to a stranger’s baby.
Krystena Murray realized the error after the baby's birth because she and her sperm donor were both white and the child was Black. Murray said she wanted to raise the baby but voluntarily gave the 5-month-old to his biological parents after she was told she would not win a legal fight for his custody.
In Australia, each state makes its own laws and rules governing the use of IVF, which advocates say puts patients at risk of error or oversight failings. Queensland’s parliament passed its first laws regulating the sector in 2024.
The measures will establish a registry for all people conceived at a clinic and made the destruction of donors’ medical histories illegal. The change followed an official report that lambasted the storage of frozen sperm donations in Queensland, finding nearly half of samples checked were at medium or high risk of misidentification and recommending thousands be destroyed.
Australia’s states and territories “need to see if their regulations are up to scratch,” the Minister for Social Services Amanda Rishworth told the Today news program Friday.
“Confidence needs to be brought back and it’s imperative that happens.”



Remains of 5,000-year-old Noblewoman Found in Peru Dig

An ancient artifact found in a recently discovered burial site at the Aspero archaeological complex, belonging to the Caral civilization, during a press presentation at the Ministry of Culture in Lima on April 24, 2025. ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP
An ancient artifact found in a recently discovered burial site at the Aspero archaeological complex, belonging to the Caral civilization, during a press presentation at the Ministry of Culture in Lima on April 24, 2025. ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP
TT

Remains of 5,000-year-old Noblewoman Found in Peru Dig

An ancient artifact found in a recently discovered burial site at the Aspero archaeological complex, belonging to the Caral civilization, during a press presentation at the Ministry of Culture in Lima on April 24, 2025. ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP
An ancient artifact found in a recently discovered burial site at the Aspero archaeological complex, belonging to the Caral civilization, during a press presentation at the Ministry of Culture in Lima on April 24, 2025. ERNESTO BENAVIDES / AFP

Archaeologists in Peru said Thursday they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas.

"What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman," archaeologist David Palomino told AFP.

The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for over 30 years until becoming an archaeological site in the 1990s.

Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000 years BC, contained skin, part of the nails and hair and was wrapped in a shroud made of several layers of fabric and a mantle of macaw feathers.

Macaws are colorful birds that belong to the parrot family.

The woman's funerary trousseau, which was presented to reporters at the culture ministry, included a toucan's beak, a stone bowl and a straw basket.

Preliminary analyses indicate that the remains found in December belong to a woman between 20 and 35 years old who was 1.5 meters (5 feet) tall, and wearing a headdress that represented her elevated social status.

Palomino told reporters the find showed that while "it was generally thought that rulers were men, or that they had more prominent roles in society" women had "played a very important role in the Caral civilization."

Caral society developed between 3000 and 1800 BC, around the same time as other great cultures in Mesopotamia, Egypt and China.

The city is situated in the fertile Supe valley, around 180 kilometers (113 miles) north of Lima and 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the Pacific Ocean.

It was declared a UN World Heritage Site in 2009.