By Kim Smiley

Unfortunately, this isn’t a tabloid story.  On September 24, 2009, a woman named Carolyn Savage gave birth to a healthy baby boy.  However, the baby boy was not biologically hers.  The fertility clinic that the Savages had used had implanted a stranger’s embryo.  The Savages decided to carry the baby to term and then give him up to his biological parents.  (See the news story.)

However, in other circumstances where a woman has discovered she is carrying a stranger’s baby, the baby has been aborted.  Although very few women have been implanted with stranger’s embryos, the consequences of such a mistake are drastic.  Because of these consequences, fertility clinics must ensure that their procedures involve checks, double checks, and are followed by every employee in a clinic.

All people make mistakes, which is why oversight is so necessary for procedures that can lead to disastrous consequences.  In the medical field, this is why effective procedures that are followed to the letter are so important.  There have been no details released in what exactly went wrong to lead to a woman being implanted with another family’s embryo.  However, it’s certain that the fertility clinic will be forced to review its procedures, to make sure that this never happens again.