Some births begin not with joy, but with fear. In families haunted by mitochondrial disease — an inherited failure of the body’s energy system — hope has often felt out of reach. But that may be changing.
In the UK, eight babies have been born using a pioneering method where DNA from a mother and father is combined with a sliver of mitochondrial material from a donor woman. The child is almost entirely their own — but carries 0.1% of DNA that replaces the faulty engine once passed from mother to child. For these families, it means life without seizures, muscle failure, or early death.
Babies from three people's DNA prevents hereditary disease
India too sees such invisible inheritances. Roughly 1 in 5,000 babies here may be born with mitochondrial disease — a number often buried beneath misdiagnosis or silence. The cost is emotional, generational, and irreversible — until now.
This technique isn’t cosmetic. It’s clinical. It isn’t about designer genes, but preserving families. And for those who’ve buried more children than they’ve raised, that difference is everything.
Science won’t erase pain — but sometimes, it gives it a better ending