Chinese baby born four years after parents' death

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

The couple, who died in 2013, had frozen several embryos hoping to have a child through IVF.

After the accident, their parents fought a protracted legal battle to be allowed to use the embryos.

The boy was born in December to a surrogate from Laos and The Beijing News first reported the case this week.

The newspaper explained how the lack of precedent for a case of this kind had forced the deceased couple's parents through a legal minefield before the surrogacy could proceed.

At the time of the accident, the embryos were stored safely in a Nanjing hospital, frozen at minus 196 degrees in a liquid nitrogen tank.

A court battle gave the four grandparents-to-be the right over the fertilised eggs.

There was no precedent as to whether they could inherit their children's frozen embryos, according to reports.

They were eventually granted the embryos, but it wasn't long until the next problem occurred. The embryos could only be taken from the Nanjing hospital if there was proof that another hospital would store them.

But given the legal uncertainty around untransplanted embryos, it was hard to find another medical institution in China willing to get involved.

And with surrogacy illegal in China, the only realistic option was to look beyond the country's borders, reports BBC.