Wrong Embryo Implanted

[Orleander]

How long after it was implanted could it have been removed and re-implanted in the biological mom?


Ohio couple giving up baby after clinic mix-up

TOLEDO, Ohio – Carolyn Savage didn't know what to think, what to say, where to look as the ultrasound wand glided over her belly. It was supposed to be her baby inside. Not someone else's.

Yet here she was in her doctor's office with the baby's biological mother, both brought together by a terrible error at a fertility clinic. A doctor, they said, had given Savage the wrong embryo, and now she was carrying the other woman's child.

"The wand is on my abdomen and the technician's talking to someone else: 'There's your baby's nose. There's your baby's head,'" she said. "It was surreal."

Embryo mix-ups at fertility clinics are extremely rare. In those few instances, they've degenerated into custody battles, ugly lawsuits and at least one abortion. But not this time. Savage and her husband decided that the right thing — the only thing — to do was to give the baby to the biological parents.

"This was someone else's child," she told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "We didn't know who it was. We didn't know if they didn't have children or if this was their last chance for a child."

"We knew if our child was out there, we'd go to the ends of the earth to get our child back," she said....

 

[Asguard]

interesting, heres a question for you. If you were the doctor, would you tell the parents or not? For instance they belive its there child, they will raise it as there child and love it as there child so basically apart from causing distress what benifit would come from actually telling them?

 

[Tiassa]

This and that

How long after it was implanted could it have been removed and re-implanted in the biological mom?

I'm not sure, but my guess would be that the answer falls somewhere between it can't and six days:

Researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health have discovered how an embryo initially attaches to the wall of the uterus—what appears to be one of the earliest steps needed to establish a successful pregnancy.

Specifically, the researchers found that 6 days after an egg is fertilized, the embryo uses specialized molecules on its surface and molecules on the surface of the uterus to attach itself to the wall of the uterus.

(Science Daily)​

• • •​

If you were the doctor, would you tell the parents or not?

I would. To the one, there is a reasonable probability that they're going to find out someday. To the other, if I was a doctor, it would be my duty to inform the patient of the error. As I see it, if I wouldn't tell the patient, I shouldn't be a doctor.

Do no harm. I can't think of anything that would do more harm than if doctors came to be known for lying to, or concealing information from, their patients.
_____________________

Notes:

"Researchers Discover How Embryo Attaches To The Uterus". ScienceDaily. January 17, 2003. ScienceDaily.com. September 24, 2009. http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2003/01/030117080654.htm

 

[Orleander]

interesting, heres a question for you. If you were the doctor, would you tell the parents or not? For instance they belive its there child, they will raise it as there child and love it as there child so basically apart from causing distress what benifit would come from actually telling them?

yes, I'd tell. For one thing, what do you tell the other family about the missing embryo. Do you just swap them and keep your mouth shut? That's a lot more to bite you in the ass than admitting your clinic made a mistake in the first place.

And did the doctor even make the mistake? Seems to me that someone brought him the wrong embryo.

 

[Asguard]

no, i didnt mean you should delibratly implant an embrio to cover yourself. However as far as the women who is already pregant what good would it actually do. Say the couple has been trying for 5 years (quite normal for some women) she comes in every month and every month it comes up negitive. She finally has one that takes and you find out down the track that its not actually hers. Would you really want to do the harm of destroying her? Im not talking about trying to cover your own ass, im saying what is seriously better for the pt? just the same as sometimes its better not to tell someone who has been in a fatal car crash that there loved one is dead\dying beside them while they are in the car themselves and in a critical condition, its better to wait until you get to the hospital and the doctors have fixed them up and THEN let the doctors there tell them. The same for someone who has no feeling below the neck (a situation i had in a prac the other day), telling them straight out in the middle of a padoc that "hey shit, you have no feeling below the neck, hope you like wheelchairs because your going to be in one for the rest of your life" is compleatly unethical. However telling them "look yes you cant feel anything but it may just be swelling pushing on the cord" even when you know dam well that its a 99.9% chance that its a transection not swelling is a much more ethical way to go. Never lie but that doesnt mean full disclosure where its against the pts interests.


As for them working it out, how many men never know there children arnt there own either untill another man pushes for a pertenity test, tells him that shes cheated, she confesses or whatever. Quite a few, some of those men even say they see themselves in the child even though there is NONE of there biology in it at all.

 

[Orleander]

...As for them working it out, how many men never know there children arnt there own either untill another man pushes for a pertenity test, tells him that shes cheated, she confesses or whatever. Quite a few, some of those men even say they see themselves in the child even though there is NONE of there biology in it at all.

are you saying this woman cheated on her husband and the embryo story is a cover??

 

[Asguard]

err no?
Tiassa or yourself said that they would find out anyway and i used that to dispute that point. There are cases of the wrong child coming home from the hospital but that is more rare (at least here where the child is in the same room as the mother unless its very sick). However there ARE quite a lot of cases where a womens cheated and gotten pregant and therefore we can use these cases to examine the theory as to wether the parents would know or not it wasnt there own embrio. Unless you want to theorise that the women is more likly to know than the father in which case i would ask you to surport that hypothisis because i highly doubt it

 

[Orleander]

Of course they would find out. That couple would have an extra embryo and the other couple would have one less. There would have to be a lot of covering up to be done and it would be found out.

 

[Asguard]

how?

Once the child is born the embrios tend to be either destroyed, abandoned or given to stem cell resurch. You think they honestly count them all before destroying them?

 

[Orleander]

Yes, I do. These people are desperate to have a child. They aren't going to willy-nilly throw them away because its not an embryo to them. Its a potential child that they have spent a LOT of money to get.

 

[Nasor]

However as far as the women who is already pregant what good would it actually do.

It's not a question of what the doctor feels would result in the least hassle and heartbreak for everyone. I suspect that the VAST majority of people would say that they would want to know. The parents have a right to know about it. Doctors deciding not to tell patients things that the patients would prefer to know is the sort of paternalistic bullshit that makes people hate doctors.