Preterm birth
James Elgin Gill (born on 20 May 1987 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada) was the earliest premature baby in the world, until that record was broken in 2014. He was 128 days premature (21 weeks and 5 days' gestation) and weighed . He survived.
Oocyte cryopreservation
Cryopreservation itself has always played a central role in assisted reproductive technology. With the first cryopreservation of sperm in 1953 and of embryos thirty years later, these techniques have become routine. Dr Christopher Chen of Singapore reported the world's first pregnancy in 1986 using previously frozen oocytes. This report stood alone for several years followed by studies reporting success rates using frozen eggs to be much lower than those of traditional in vitro fertilization (IVF) techniques using fresh oocytes. Providing the lead to a new direction in cryobiology, Dr. Lilia Kuleshova was the first scientist to achieve vitrification of human oocytes that resulted in a live birth in 1999. Then recently, two articles published in the journal, "Fertility and Sterility", reported pregnancy rates using frozen oocytes that were comparable to those of cryopreserved embryos and even fresh embryos. These newer reports affirm that oocyte cryopreservation technology is advancing.