Twins Lydia and Timothy Ridgeway were born on October 31, 2022, from embryos that were frozen on April 22, 1992. The National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) believes they have set a new world record for the oldest frozen embryos that resulted in a live birth.
Photo Credit: Rachel and Philip Ridgeway
The previous record holder was Molly Gibson, born in 2020 from a 27-year-old embryo, although the date embryos are frozen is often not tracked. The Ridgeway twins have been dubbed the “world’s oldest babies” and are now home with their happy adoptive parents and four siblings aged between two and eight. Their father, Phillip Ridgeway, was born just five years before his children’s embryos were formed.
“There is something mind-boggling about it,” said Ridgeway in a statement to Sky News. “In a sense, they’re our oldest children, even though they’re our smallest children.”
Experiences like Molly Gibson’s and the Ridgeway aren’t typical. Frozen embryos are usually stored for 10 years or less, although donors can choose to keep them longer as they can be viable for multiple decades.
Photo Credit: Rachel and Philip Ridgeway
This process takes embryos at different points in their development, exposed to a liquid that draws water out of the cells and then rapidly freezes them. The embryos are then stored in liquid nitrogen until chosen for in vitro fertilization (IVF). Remarkably, the “world’s oldest babies” are a combination of a 34-year-old egg and a biological father in his 50s.
