Shanghai to Adopt New Test-tube Baby Tech

"The technology - pre-natal genetics diagnosis (PGD) - means that doctors can inspect for genetic diseases before planting test-tube developed embryos into women's wombs," said Ren Deling, professor of genetic diseases at the Shanghai Ji'ai Genetics and IVF Institute China-US Centre.

"The inspections will help prevent the planting of unhealthy embryos and prevent babies with genetic diseases being born," Ren said.

Shanghai Ji'ai has so far employed two generations of technology - non-surgical sperm aspiration (NSA) and intro cyto-plasma sperm injection (ICSI) technology - to help couples with different kinds of infertility problems.

Since its establishment in September 1998, more than 1,100 mothers have got pregnant after operation.

The number of test-tube babies successfully carried to term has reached 466. But the centre said some babies were born outside Shanghai and thus not registered by the centre.

''Our success rates with the two technologies, 40 per cent with NSA and 36 per cent with ICSI, are even higher than those of US counterparts," Zhao Weipeng, director of the Shanghai centre, said in a ceremony marking the 1,000th successful test-tube baby inseminations yesterday in Shanghai.

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