Stories like this also highlight how reproductive technologies are shaping families. Thaddeus already has a 30-year-old sister and a 10-year-old niece. Lindsey and Tim are his birth parents, but his genes came from two other people who divorced decades ago.
And while baby Thaddeus is a record-breaker, plenty of other babies have been born from embryos that have been frozen for significant spells of time.
Thaddeus has taken the title of “world’s oldest baby” from the previous record-holders: twins Lydia Ann and Timothy Ronald Ridgeway, born in 2022, who developed from embryos that were created 30 years earlier, in 1992. Before that, the title was held by Molly Gibson, who developed from an embryo that was in storage for 27 years.
These remarkable stories suggest there may be no limit to how long embryos can be stored. Even after more than 30 years of being frozen at -196 °C (-321 °F), these tiny cells can be reanimated and develop into healthy babies. (Proponents of cryogenics can only dream of achieving anything like this with grown people.)
These stories also serve as a reminder that thanks to advances in cryopreservation and the ever-increasing popularity of IVF, a growing number of embryos are being stored in tanks. No one knows for sure how many there are, but there are millions of them.
Not all of them will be used in IVF. There are plenty of reasons why someone who created embryos might never use them. Archerd says that while she had always planned to use all four of the embryos she created with her then husband, he didn’t want a bigger family. Some couples create embryos and then separate. Some people “age out” of being able to use their embryos themselves—many clinics refuse to transfer an embryo to people in their late 40s or older.
