What to Do With Baby?
Limbo for embryos from fertility treatments
By NESITA KWAN
Updated 3:21 PM EST, Thu, Dec 4, 2008
A desperate desire to have children often leads to fertility treatments, and then to a dilemma for parents. What to do with their unused embroys after they've had all the children they want?
In the largest study of its kind, Duke University researchers found that more than half of fertility clinic patients who were done having children, didn't want to donate their embryos to other couples. Most often these parents said they didn't want their biological children growing up in someone else's home.
66 percent of these patients said donating the embryos to science made sense, because it might do some good.
But many parents simply can't decide, and there are an estimated half million frozen embryos indefinitely stored acorss the country.
Researchers concluded that this is an issue parents and doctors ought to discuss at the beginning of fertility treatments, so patients have more time to process their thoughts and feelings.
First Published: Dec 4, 2008 1:50 PM EST
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