A 54-year-old Greek woman has given birth to a baby girl from an embryo that had been frozen for more than 22 years, following the tragic death of her son who was born from the same batch of embryos.
The remarkable birth was announced by the woman’s gynaecologist, Konstantinos Pantos, who described the arrival of the baby as an emotionally significant moment for the family.
According to Pantos, the woman, identified as Christina Rapti-Tzelepi, first underwent an embryo transfer in 2004 and became pregnant on her first attempt.
The treatment resulted in the birth of a healthy baby boy.
However, the family suffered a devastating loss in October 2025 when their son died in a road traffic accident at the age of 21.
Following his death, Rapti-Tzelepi decided to undergo another embryo transfer using an embryo from the same batch that had been preserved since the earlier treatment.
The embryo was transferred in December 2025, and the pregnancy was successfully carried to term, with Rapti-Tzelepi giving birth to a baby girl on Wednesday.
Speaking to Greece’s state broadcaster, ERT, the new mother said the birth represented an emotional mixture of grief and happiness for the family.
“There was mourning and joy involved, but everything disappeared this morning when we held our beauty in our arms,” she said.
Rapti-Tzelepi had reached the maximum age permitted for in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment in Greece, where women are currently allowed to undergo the procedure up to the age of 54.
Her husband, Konstantinos Raptis, described the pregnancy as a “race against time” because of the country’s existing age restrictions on IVF treatment.
He said his wife had reached the very limit of the age permitted under Greek law and used the experience to call for a review of the country’s IVF age restrictions.
Raptis argued that older women should not be judged solely by statistics, saying they could provide mature, conscious and unconditional love to children.
The case has drawn attention to the possibilities of embryo preservation and the emotional and ethical questions surrounding assisted reproduction at an advanced maternal age.
For the family, however, the birth has brought a new chapter after an extraordinary period of loss and grief, with a child born from an embryo created more than two decades earlier now becoming part of the family’s story.
