Genetic testing first with birth of healthy twins

The first woman to use a controversial form of genetic testing during fertility treatment in New Zealand has produced healthy twins.

The 39-year-old Central North Island woman, who requested anonymity, had her babies last month.

"She has delivered twins and they are both doing very well," said fertility specialist Dr Richard Fisher.

She sought help from his clinic, Fertility Associates, after suffering repeated miscarriages for five years.

She has a condition which greatly increases the risk of her embryos having an abnormal arrangement of chromosomes, increasing the chance of miscarriage in early pregnancy.

She used a procedure called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). It starts with in-vitro fertilisation (IVF), in which her eggs are fertilised with sperm in a laboratory. One or two cells are extracted from each of the developing embryos and tested; only normal embryos are implanted in the uterus.

Four other Fertility Associates patients are pregnant following PGD, which was permitted by the Government last year, with strict conditions.

Overseas, PGD has been used to choose the sex of babies. Some New Zealanders have travelled to foreign clinics for this, which in the United States can cost US$20,000 ($31,195).

PGD for sex selection is not permitted in New Zealand, except to avoid sex-linked conditions such as Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Couples with a known risk of a genetic disorder can use PGD to avoid the decision on whether or not to abort a fetus that inherits the condition.

The Catholic Church opposes PGD because unwanted embryos are discarded, which the Catholic Bioethics Centre says is unacceptable to the church. The Right to Life group opposes the procedure for the same reason, and because it involves discrimination against some embryos on the grounds that they have a potential disability.

PGD and the associated IVF costs around $12,000.

The Government has budgeted $500,000 to pay for PGD where there is a risk of passing on a serious genetic disorder. This is likely to involve around 40 cycles of IVF/PGD a year. A further 110 cycles are expected to be paid for privately, mainly to detect chromosomal disorders that can lead to miscarriage with increasing maternal age.

Dr Fisher said that while his patient's treatment happened before the Government funding, she would probably qualify because the chromosomal disorder was unrelated to her age.