An Australian in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinic admitted Thursday night that it had mixed up the wrong embryo, resulting in one woman giving birth to another woman's child.
"I would like to say how sorry I am for what happened," Michael Knaap, director of the Brisbane clinic, Monash IVF, said in a statement.
"We are all devastated at Monash IVF and apologize to everyone involved. We will continue to support patients during this extremely difficult time."
A human error resulted in the "incorrect transfer" of the embryo from one patient to another patient who then gave birth, the statement continued.
The error was discovered in February when the child's parents asked to have the remaining embryos in their stock transferred to another clinic: staff found one more embryo than expected.
An investigation found that another patient's embryo was "improperly thawed" and transferred to the mother. The date of the incident was not specified.
"The investigation revealed that human error occurred despite strict laboratory safety protocols, including multi-step identification processes," the statement read.
Monash IVF said it informed affected patients within a week to apologize and offer support.
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