Alarm after Rome embryo mix-up

Woman carrying twins that are not genetically hers

(ANSA) - Rome, April 14 - Rome's Sandro Pertini Hospital was inundated with telephone calls Monday from worried couples seeking reassurances after reports that a woman was implanted with the wrong embryos at the facility and was carrying twins that are not her own. The Roman hospital has helped hundreds of people with assisted-fertility treatment, many of whom now fear that children they are expecting or that have been born to them may not be genetically theirs.

The Pertini Hospital is conducting a series of tests to verify the accuracy of DNA tests carried out by the parents who reported the embryo swap, "also to reassure the others", the hospital said. The lawyer of the couple that reported the mix-up also sent the documentation of the DNA exam to Roman public health authorities. The documentation will be analyzed while during the wait for the results of additional exams.

The woman has decided to take the pregnancy to term, her lawyer told Rome-based newspaper La Repubblica. "I had a moment of human rejection when I knew that they were not mine, or rather ours, that the embryos that I was carrying were of another woman, but then we decided that the pregnancy had to continue, our values are these," said the woman according to her lawyer, Michele Ambrosini.