China: Baby born four years after parents died in car crash

China: Baby born four years after parents died in car crash

A baby has been born in China to a surrogate mother, four years after the parents were killed in a car crash, Chinese media has reported.

The boy’s parents, Shen Jie and his wife Liu Xi, were killed in a crash in Yixing in Jiangsu province in March 2013

They were undergoing fertility treatment before they died.

According to the Beijing News, via South China Morning Post, a surrogate mother from Laos gave birth to the baby boy using the couple’s fertilised embryos.

After the accident, the both parents of the couple fought a long legal battle to be allowed to use the embryos.

After finally being granted custody of the embryos in January 2017, both sets of parents travelled to Laos to find a mother as surrogacy in illegal in China.

Little Tiantian was born in December and, according to Liu’s mother, he looks just like his father.

“Tiantian’s eyes look like my daughter’s but overall, he looks more like his father,” she told Beijing News.

The legal battle was a drawn out process as there was no precedent for a case of this kind.

Once the parents were eventually granted the embryos, they then had to find a hospital in China that was willing to store them. Given the legal ambiguity around untransplanted embryos, the group had to look outside the country.

The grandparents have not decided how to tell Tiantian about his background. Shen Xinan, Tiantian’s paternal grandfather, told Beijing News that until Tiantian is older they will tell him his parents are overseas.

“This boy is destined to be sad on his arrival into the world. Other babies have their fathers and mothers, but he doesn’t. We will definitely tell him in the future. How can we not?” Shen said.