Grandmother, aged 61, gave birth the child for her son and his husband through gestational surrogacy

By Neucrad Health India news desk April 15, 2019

On March 25, 2019, in a rare and exciting medical event a grandmother aged 61, bore the child of her son and his husband through gestational surrogacy. Cecile Reynek Eledge gave birth to her own granddaughter, Uma Louise at Nebraska Medical Centre when her son Matthew Eledge (32) and his partner Elliot Dougherty (29) decided to grow their family. The baby was initially conceived through IVF with the help of her father’s (Matthew Eledge) sperm and aunt’s (Lea Yribe, 26) egg. She weighed 5 pounds, 13 ounces and to everyone’s surprise, the baby was delivered naturally instead of the anticipated Caesarean Section. Doctors at the hospital confirmed that the surrogate mother and baby were doing well after birth. This extraordinary phenomenon is a rare manifestation of selfless love of a grandmother and aunt.

How Did Reynek Eledge Serve As The Gestational Surrogate For Uma?

When Matthew Eledge and his partner Elliot Dougherty were considering to have a baby through IVF and surrogacy, Eledge’s mother Cecile expressed her desire to bear the baby. It was a highly unconventional thought, as she was already 61 and have undergone menopause ten years back. She went through a battery of tests involving cardiac analysis, cholesterol profile, and stress tests; decided to leave coffee for nine months when doctors found out that her body was in excellent state and gave the go-ahead for surrogacy. After this, Cecile went through hormonal treatment, and Eledge’s sperm got implanted in Lea’s uterus for fertilization. Luckily, she got pregnant at the first attempt, Cecile went on to have a successful surrogacy, and a healthy baby was born on 25, March 2019, at Nebraska Medical Centre after full term. This rare phenomenon proves that where there is a will, there is a way, and medical science can do wonders to bring a smile on your face. Continue reading to know more about surrogacy.

What Is Surrogacy?

Surrogacy is a procedure of assisted reproduction where the parents are not able to carry the child till the completion of pregnancy-term. In such conditions, they take the help of another woman to bear the baby in her uterus and give birth to her after gestation. Usually, couple use surrogacy for growing their family when any one of the partners is infertile, the mother has medical issues with her uterus, any one of the partners has genetic defect which they do not wish to pass on to the child, or in the case of same-sex parents who want to bear a genetically linked baby.

What Are The Types Of Surrogacy?

There are two sub-categories of surrogacy-traditional surrogacy and gestational surrogacy. In traditional surrogacy, the surrogate mother uses her egg which gets artificially inseminated either by the father’s sperm or donor sperm and the pregnancy gets carried till term. In these cases, the surrogate mother is also the biological mother of the baby as she remains genetically linked to the child.

Nowadays, fertility specialists have developed a more advanced type of surrogacy called gestational surrogate where intended parents can bear a genetically linked baby through this fertility technique. Here doctors use IVF technology for the fertilisation of sperm and ovum of the parents and then implant it to the surrogate mother’s uterus. The baby does not remain genetically linked to the surrogate. She is only the ‘birth mother’ of the baby, whereas the woman whose egg was taken for fertilisation is the ‘biological mother’.

Advantages of Gestational Surrogacy

There are several advantages of gestational surrogacy over the traditional surrogacy. Here the infertile parents can have a genetically linked child. It is the least legally complex form of surrogacy. The mother can also freeze her egg for future use in gestational surrogacy. However, one should also remember that it is a time consuming and expensive procedure, so it is essential to have patience during the entire cycle.

Finally, we can say that gestational surrogacy is a revolutionary fertility treatment giving a ray of hope to infertile parents to raise a family.

About featured image: It is for illustration purpose only.