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Woman gives birth to grandchild

A Japanese woman in her 50s gave birth to her own grandchild last year by using an egg from her daughter and sperm from her daughter's husband, reports say.

It was the first time in Japan that a woman has acted as a surrogate mother for her daughter, Japan's largest newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported.

The woman agreed to in vitro fertilisation because her daughter, in her 30s, had her uterus removed and was unable to bear children, the Yomiuri said, quoting Dr Yahiro Netsu, director of the Suwa maternity Clinic in Nagano in central Japan.

Netsu performed in vitro fertilisation in 2004 and delivered the child last year, the newspaper said. Both the surrogate mother and the child, whose sex was not disclosed, are in good health, it said.

Kyodo News agency and public broadcaster NHK carried similar reports.

The doctor could not be immediately reached for comment.

Netsu - who has performed a total of five surrogate births according to news reports - announced in 2001 that a surrogate mother had successfully delivered a baby, believed to be the first such birth of its kind in Japan.

Surrogate births involve removing an egg for fertilisation and implanting it in another woman who carries the baby to birth. – (Sapa-AP)

Read more in our Pregnancy Centre
Or put your questions to our Fertility expert

October 2006

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