A 61-year-old woman from Japan gave birth to her own grandchild, using an egg donated by her daughter, a clinic said Thursday.

The Houston Chronicle reports that, “surrogate births are extremely rare in Japan and banned by industry groups, but they are not illegal. The Suwa Maternity Clinic in Nagano, northwest of Tokyo, refused to provide information such as the date of the birth or gender of the baby. News reports said the baby was born last year.”

The clinic claimed it performed the procedure since the woman’s daughter had no uterus, but didn’t give details on why she had that particular condition. The daughter donated a fertilized egg to the surrogate mother.

Chehiro Netsu, a spokeswoman for the clinic, said, “both surrogate mother and baby are fine.”

Dr. Yahiro Netsu, who runs the clinic, has long rebelled against national opposition to such procedures, claiming that they should be an option for women who are infertile.

According to the Chronicle, “in 2001, he performed what is thought to be the country’s first successful surrogate birth. In 1998, Netsu was expelled from Japan’s gynecology association for performing in-vitro fertilization with eggs and sperm of donors who were not married to each other, though he was later reinstated.”

To read the entire article from the Houston Chronicle, link here:

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