LONDON: A joyful couple were celebrating at home in Britain on Friday with the UK’s first - and the world’s second - baby to be born with a desired genetic characteristic known in advance.

The family say that their baby girl, who was born at 8pm on Thursday night in a British hospital, is not a “designer baby”, but a much longed-for child who brings with her into the world, as an extra gift, cells capable of saving her older brother if he suffers a relapse into leukemia.

The family does not want to be identified, but does want its story to be known so that other families in similar circumstances can benefit from the procedure.

Mohammad Taranissi, the fertility specialist who anticipates getting the go-ahead soon from the human fertilisation and embryology authority to offer the procedure at his London clinic, said three other women were now pregnant with such babies elsewhere in the world.

The designer baby tag has been bestowed by those who fear the technique could eventually be used to screen healthy embryos in advance of implantation in the womb for “positive”, subjective characteristics such as beauty or intelligence.

But no such genes have yet been found, nor is it certain that they ever will or could be. Taranissi argued on Friday that it was absurd to compare Thursday’s birth with the so far imaginary concept of designer babies.

“Nobody who had seen this couple when their baby was delivered, the joy and the tears, could doubt that this baby will be loved and cherished for itself,” said Taranissi, who was at the hospital when the baby was born.

“This will make people feel and see and realise this technology is helpful, and hopefully can be used by others. That’s what I feel very strongly about. It’s very easy to talk about all these ethical and immoral arguments when you’re not in this situation yourself.”

The parents of the baby have a five-year-old son who is recovering well from leukemia after chemotherapy. But he remains on the danger list. If he suffers a relapse in the next few years, he may require a bone marrow transplant, with no certainty of a compatible donor being found in time. Other family members have already been tested and do not have compatible marrow.

The mother sought help from the scientists who carried out the world’s first such procedure in the US, and they agreed to include her in their programme. She underwent IVF treatment, which involves fertilising her eggs with her husband’s sperm in a petri dish in order to produce a number of embryos for implantation into her womb.

Unlike conventional IVF, the embryos underwent genetic screening to make sure that the one implanted in the womb had the particular configuration of genes needed to ensure compatibility in the event of a transplant. The slur of “spare parts baby”, sometimes applied to the procedure, does not apply, since the source of cells for any transplant is something which would otherwise usually be discarded at birth - stem cells from blood in the newborn baby’s umbilical cord.

“This is what medicine is all about: preventing and curing illnesses,” said Taranissi, whose clinic works jointly with the Chicago clinic which carried out the genetic screening. “I feel very proud. This is the start of something hopeful. I’m not an emotional person but on Friday I was.” —Dawn/The Guardian News Service.