Three-parent embryos for lesbian couples

Hello there, my name is Stacy and my partner is a woman. I’d like to know whether there is any possibility that we had a three-parent baby conceived using our eggs and donor sperm… Thanks and best regards.

Hello Stacy,

UK MPs have voted in favor of allowing “three-parent” embryos, that is, embryos made from the sperm of a man and the eggs of two women. However, it is only indicated in cases where the intended mother is a carrier of a mitochondrial disease. That’s why this new type of donation is known as “mitochondrial donation”.

Thanks to this new technique, the nucleus of a donor egg is removed, and the nucleus of the woman concerned is transferred. Then, it is fertilized using donor sperm. This allows the embryo to have the mitochondrial genes of an egg donor, and besides the nucleus contains half the genetic load of each one of the parents.

Unfortunately, this technique has not been approved for its use among lesbian couples yet; as I said before, it is only indicated for women with this type of mitochondrial diseases. Moreover, the egg that carries the cytoplasm and the mitochondria contains only 1% of the baby’s genetic material.

Lesbian shared biological motherhood is today only possible through the so-called “Reciprocal IVF” method, in which one of the partners delivers her eggs, which are fertilized with donor sperm, and the other woman bears the pregnancy.

Hope this helps