A 54-year-old Greek woman has given birth to a baby girl from an embryo that had been frozen for more than 22 years, in a case described by her doctor as carrying profound emotional significance.
Gynaecologist Konstantinos Pantos announced the birth on Wednesday, revealing that the embryo came from the same batch used to conceive the woman’s first child in 2004.
According to Pantos, Christina Rapti-Tzelepi gave birth to a healthy baby boy after an embryo transfer in 2004. The family, however, suffered a devastating loss in October 2025 when their son died in a road traffic accident at the age of 21.
The family later decided to use another embryo from the original batch. The embryo was transferred in December, resulting in the birth of a baby girl on Wednesday.
“There was mourning and joy involved, but everything disappeared this morning when we held our beauty in our arms,” Rapti-Tzelepi told Greek state broadcaster ERT.
Rapti-Tzelepi had reached the maximum age permitted for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) under Greek law, which currently stands at 54.
Her husband, Konstantinos Raptis, said the family had been in a race against time because of the country’s age restrictions on IVF treatment.
He said his wife had reached “quite literally, the very limits” of the age restrictions under existing legislation.
Raptis subsequently called for Greece to reconsider its IVF age limit, arguing that older women can provide deep emotional support and stability to their children.
“Older women have an immeasurable capacity to offer mature, conscious and unconditional love, as well as a stability that no statistic can ever fully measure,” he said.
The birth has attracted attention because the embryo remained frozen for more than two decades before being transferred, while also carrying a deeply personal connection to the family’s late son.
For the family, the arrival of the baby girl represents a moment of renewed joy following the devastating loss they experienced less than a year earlier.
