Emirati woman gives birth to first frozen egg technique baby

40-year-old Emirati woman has become the first to give birth to a test-tube baby through frozen-egg technique in the country.

The baby boy, first in the UAE and Gulf region using human oocyte was recently delivered at Al Qassimi hospital, Sharjah, Dubai Health Authority said today.

The baby is healthy and weights 3.30 kg.

The woman had been undergoing infertility treatment for several years at the Dubai Gynaecology and Fertility Centre.

This delivery has given a huge boost to the frozen egg technique in the country which was previously known to have a very poor success rate, DHA said in a statement.

"This is a huge development for us. Not only this lady, three other women who used this technique got pregnant and will be delivering their babies in the next few months. We have achieved 100 per cent success rate with all four patients," Samer Radi, Senior Embryologist and Gynaecologist, Dubai Gynaecology and Fertility Centre, DHA said.

Until recently the frozen egg technique had a success rate of only 2 per cent per oocyte and this dissuaded doctors from around the world to use this form of treatment.

Instead, doctors substituted this technique with freezing embryos which was known to have a higher success rate.