Woman Gave Birth to Another Couple’s Baby After IVF Mix-Up

A woman in Australia recently gave birth to a baby that wasn’t hers, and had no idea until a fertility clinic realized they’d implanted the wrong embryo.

The IVF mix-up happened at Monash IVF, one of the country’s biggest fertility providers, which called it a “devastating human error.” The incident wasn’t uncovered until February 2025, when staff noticed one embryo too many in storage. That led to an audit, which revealed that a completely different patient’s embryo had been thawed and transferred without anyone realizing.

The baby, born in 2024, is healthy, but genetically unrelated to the woman who carried and birthed it. Details about custody haven’t been released, and neither family has been identified.

“All of us at Monash IVF are devastated, and we apologize to everyone involved,” CEO Michael Knaap said in a statement that sounds exactly like what you’d expect from a company trying to do damage control.

The clinic says it followed “strict safety protocols,” but obviously not strict enough. It reported the error to regulators in Queensland, where the incident occurred.

And this isn’t the first scandal Monash IVF has faced. Last year, the company shelled out $35 million USD to settle a class-action lawsuit brought by 700+ patients who claimed the clinic destroyed viable embryos. No wrongdoing was admitted—just, you know, millions paid out quietly.

These kinds of screwups aren’t unique to Australia. In Georgia earlier this year, a white woman gave birth to a Black baby after an IVF error. She only realized what had happened after the birth and eventually gave the child to its biological parents when she was told she’d likely lose a custody battle.

Australia’s fertility industry is regulated on a state-by-state basis, which experts say leaves plenty of room for mishaps. Queensland only passed its first IVF-specific laws this year, after a report found nearly half of the state’s stored sperm donations were at “medium or high” risk of being misidentified.

“Confidence needs to be brought back, and it’s imperative that it happens,” said Social Services Minister Amanda Rishworth.

For the woman at the center of this mess, no amount of carefully worded PR statements or new regulations can undo what happened. She carried someone else’s baby for nine months—and only found out long after the fact.