The first baby conceived with the help of a new egg screening technique which could offer hope to women for whom IVF has repeatedly failed has been born.

第一例通过卵细胞筛选技术的帮助而出生的婴儿可能会给试管受精屡次失败的妇女提供帮助。

Professor Simon Fishel hopes the new test which led to baby Oliver will help couples with repeated IVF failures

Oliver was born to a 41-year-old woman who had had 13 failed IVF treatments.

The new screening method, developed in Nottingham, allows a rapid analysis of the genetic¹ material in fertilised eggs to check for chromosomal²（染色体） abnormalities.

The British Fertility Society said the technique was promising³ but that more research was needed.

Professor Simon Fishel, who led the team, said Oliver's arrival showed that the test could help couples who have repeatedly failed to become pregnant.

"All the team have been waiting for this very special baby to be born.

"Oliver's birth is an important landmark⁴ in shaping our understanding of why many women fail to become pregnant.

"Up to half of the eggs in younger women and up to 75% in women over 39 are chromosomally abnormal.

"Array Comparative Genomic Hybridisation is used to screen eggs or embryos⁵（晶胚） in an IVF cycle, evaluate all the chromosomes⁶ and select the most chromosomally normal embryos."

Before an egg is fertilised, it ejects half of its own set of chromosomes to leave space for the chromosomes coming from the father's sperm⁷.

Miscarriages⁸

These "spare" chromosomes are kept in a structure on the edge of the cell known as the 'polar body'.

Array CGH involves extracting the polar body and looking to see if there are too few or too many chromosomes.

It's believed that two out of three women fail at each IVF attempt because of chromosomal abnormalities in the implanted（灌输，嵌入） egg.

The team at Care Fertility Clinic have found a way of speeding the analysis of the genetic material they extract.

Two years ago US scientists announced that 18 women had given birth after having their eggs screened using a similar technique.

But in those cases the subsequent embryos had to be frozen and re-implanted later.

The Nottingham team can get the results back in 24 hours which means that the mother can undergo IVF in the same cycle of treatment.

Oliver's parents had 13 previous failed IVF cycles and three miscarriages（处理不当，失败）.

Eight eggs were tested and only two found to be chromosomally normal. One of those produced Oliver.

Great hope

British Fertility Society chairman Tony Rutherford said the technology offered much promise but the widespread use of it should await the outcome of further rigorous（严厉的，严酷的） research.

He said there was no compelling evidence（强有力的证据） yet that pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) tests, in which embryos are looked at for genetic abnormalities before they are implanted in the womb, improved the pregnancy⁹ rate or live birth rate.

He said: "All too often we see groundbreaking news about techniques that seem to offer great hope, but fail to live up to expectations when applied¹⁰ in widespread clinical practice."

Professor Peter Braude, Head of the Department of Women's Health, King's College London, said he was delighted that the mother had achieved her positive outcome after so many years of trying but he too sounded a note of caution.

"At the moment this can only be viewed as a potentially very lucky result," he said.