Nigeria recently recorded the first birth of a baby conceived from frozen egg of a 44-year old woman, who had suffered infertility for eight years, thus making it the first time in the country and West Africa.
The conception and birth of the baby, who by name is Tiwatope, was known to be the 5001st in the world, were carried out by Nigerian fertility specialists at The Bridge Clinic, a Lagos-based fertility treatment centre, using the vitrification (flash freezing) process.
Dr. Emmanuel Owie, a fertility physician at the Bridge Clinic, Lagos, announced the medical milestone, stating that the birth of the baby on February 16, 2016, has effectively put Nigeria on the global map as regards the practice of cryopreservation or oocyte (egg) freezing, a new offering in the in-vitro fertilization (IVF) space.
On her readiness for pregnancy, Owie noted: ” We fertilized the eggs using a standardd technique kown as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) to overcome the egg shell which normally gets hardened with freezing”
Owie further stated that the fertilized egg was subsequently transferred into her womb, resulting in the pregnancy of Tiwa.
At The Bridge Clinic, we celebrate Tiwa’s birth as it is a further demonstration of our coming of age in he practice of assisted reproductive technology. It is a show of the sum of our strengths – our people, our process and our infrastructure.
Noting that the baby and his mother are in good health, Owie said egg freezing was particularly recommended for women diagnosed with cancer, who may lose their fertility during chemotherapy; women with a family history of early menopause; women with objections to storing frozen embryos for religious and/or moral reasons; and women who want to delay child-bearing in order to pursue some personal goals.
