Woman births stranger’s child after IVF error
Monash IVF has mistakenly implanted a woman with the wrong embryo, causing her to give birth to a stranger’s child, in a case of ‘human error’ in a shocking mix-up that is believed to be the first of its kind in Australia.
Monash IVF has mistakenly implanted a woman with the wrong embryo, causing her to give birth to a stranger’s child, in a case of “human error” in a shocking mix-up that is believed to be the first of its kind in Australia.
The world-leading clinic apologised on Thursday following revelations it had unwittingly implanted a Brisbane woman with an embryo belonging to a different donor couple, in a “distressing” mistake that was not discovered until months after the baby was born.
“The human error was identified … following the birth parents requesting the transfer of their remaining embryos to another IVF provider. Instead of finding the expected number of embryos, an additional embryo remained in storage for the birth parents,” a statement released by Monash IVF said.
“Our focus is on supporting our patients through this extremely distressing time. We are devastated about what has happened and apologise to everyone involved. We are truly sorry.
“The investigation confirmed that an embryo from a different patient had previously been incorrectly thawed and transferred to the birth parents, which resulted in the birth of a child. The investigation also found that despite strict laboratory safety protocols being in place, including multi-step identification processes being conducted, a human error was made.”
The Herald Sun, which broke the story, reported both the donor family and birth family were mulling legal options. It is believed to be the first case in Australia of a birth following incorrect embryo implantation.
“On behalf of Monash IVF, I want to say how truly sorry I am for what has happened,” Monash IVF chief executive Michael Knaap said.
“All of us at Monash IVF are devastated and we apologise to everyone involved. We will continue to support the patients through this extremely distressing time.
“Since becoming aware of this incident, we have undertaken additional audits and we’re confident this is an isolated incident.
“We are reinforcing all our safeguards across our clinics – we also commissioned an independent investigation and are committed to implementing its recommendations in full.”
Melbourne-based Monash IVF reported its mistake to the relevant medical authorities and informed both families in the week following the discovery.
It has also commissioned a review from silk Fiona McLeod SC to determine exactly how the error occurred.
Monash IVF, fresh off a multimillion-dollar class action settlement over genetic testing, said it was “committed to implementing all recommendations from this ongoing independent investigation”.
The clinic did not identify either of the couples involved or say which family the infant was living with.
“While we understand the public interest in this matter, the privacy of the families involved – including the child – has been our priority,” the statement said.
It is the second major crisis to engulf Monash IVF under the watch of Mr Knaap after it was taken to the Supreme Court for conducting inaccurate genetic tests on more than a thousand embryos.
Soon after introducing non-invasive pre-implantation testing across its clinics in May 2019, Monash IVF found its results were accurate in only 75-85 per cent of cases, thereby driving women to discard viable embryos and make major life choices based on shoddy information. A class action was launched by more than 700 patients in August 2023 and settled for $56m with no admission of wrongdoing a year later.
The Supreme Court heard Monash IVF affiliate Repromed had allegedly covered up illegal experiments on patient embryos through a pattern of routine forgery and doctoring clinical results.
The genetic test was supposed to be a world-leading innovation for the privately owned clinic after it successfully carried out the first human IVF pregnancy in 1973, but exposed the company to massive risk after documents provided to the Therapeutic Goods Administration showed the test’s accuracy rate may have been artificially inflated by doctors who “may have … deliberately omitted” results in trials that impacted their accuracy.