World’s “Oldest Baby” Born From Embryo Frozen In 1994 In New World Record

Despite being less than a week old, that makes Thaddeus Daniel Pierce the world’s “oldest baby”, nabbing the title from a pair of twins born from 30-year-old frozen embryos back in 2022. 

“It’s like something from a sci-fi movie,” said baby Thaddeus’s mom, Lindsey Pierce, speaking to MIT Technology Review.

The embryo that led to Thaddeus was created by Linda Archerd and her then-husband back in May 1994, who were attempting in vitro fertilization (IVF) after having spent six years trying to get pregnant with no success.

They created four embryos in total, one of which was successfully implanted and led to Archerd’s now 30-year-old daughter, while the remaining three were frozen. While Archerd and her husband eventually separated, she didn’t want the cryopreserved embryos to be thrown away, donated to research, or given to another family anonymously.

Instead, she went through an “embryo adoption” agency that allows both donors and recipients to have preferences about each other, with Archerd knowing who her embryos would be donated to. Many of these agencies are Christian, as are both Archerd and the Pierces.

It was a long shot finding somewhere that would be willing to take embryos that’ve been frozen for so long. IVF has come a long way since it was first used; back then, embryos were frozen much more slowly, a process that can lead to damage and reduce the chances of the embryo surviving the thawing process. Nowadays, embryos are frozen much more quickly.

“I would say that over 90% of clinics in the US would not have accepted these embryos,” Beth Button, director of the Snowflakes program that took on Archerd’s embryos, told MIT Technology Review.

Luckily, despite having been preserved using the slow-freezing method, the 30.5-year-old embryos survived the thawing process. Then, in November 2024, two of them were transferred to Lindsey’s uterus – and nine months later, there was Thaddeus.

“We had a rough birth but we are both doing well now,” said Pierce. “He is so chill. We are in awe that we have this precious baby!”

The first-ever IVF baby, Louise Brown, was born in July 1978. In the 47 years since then, more than 13 million babies are estimated to have been born with the help of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) like IVF. Besides improving freezing methods, new ways to fine-tune the process have been developed in that time too – including the world’s first live birth from a technique that sees eggs matured outside of the body.