Thaddeus Daniel Prince: The Thirty-Year-Old Newborn

A photo of Thaddeus Daniel Prince, who has been called the “world’s oldest baby” by many.

On July 26th, 2025, the screams of a newborn rang out as Lindsey and Tim Pierce of Ohio welcomed their firstborn son, Thaddeus Daniel Pierce. The peculiar thing about Thaddeus, a healthy baby, was that he was born from an embryo that was frozen for more than 30 years. The embryo that Thaddeus came from was created in 1994 through in vitro fertilization (IVF) by Linda Archerd, who then donated it through the Snowflakes Embryo Adoption Program.

At the time of implantation in Lindsey, the embryo had spent well over 11,000 days in cryogenic storage, which preserves materials at extremely low temperatures to maintain integrity and prevent degradation. This makes it the longest successful embryo cryogenic storage on record that resulted in a healthy baby. 

What is Embryo Cryopreservation?

Embryo resizing, or embryo cryogenic storage, is the process of preserving embryos at extremely cold temperatures using liquid nitrogen. Currently, most labs use vitrification—a new method developed in the 2000s that prevents ice crystal formation by quickly freezing the embryo in a glass-like solid state—as the main method of cryopreservation. However, Thaddeus’s embryo, back in the mid-1990s, was preserved using the slow freezing technique, which involves gradually lowering the embryo’s temperature in a controlled way. This was done using cryoprotectants, which are chemicals that prevent damage from ice crystals in the embryo’s cells. 

In order to lower the temperature of the embryo via slow freezing, it requires many steps. First, the embryo gets exposed to cryoprotectants, which essentially dehydrates the cell, preventing, as mentioned before, damage from the potential formation of ice crystals. Then, the embryos are cooled gradually to sub-zero temperatures. Lastly, they are stored in liquid nitrogen tanks, which stops all biological processing, including aging and DNA synthesis. Freezing the embryo ensures that there is no DNA degradation, and it stays like that until a family chooses that embryo for implantation. 

Once an embryo is selected for implantation, it is thawed. The thawing process of the embryos is just as important as freezing them. In order to ensure that embryos don’t experience cell rupture or death, they must be carefully warmed up at a precise rate and rehydrated using solutions that gradually remove the cryoprotectants. 

The Story of Thaddeus Daniel Pierce

So, how did Thaddeus Daniel Pierce come about? It began in 1994, when Linda underwent IVF and got 4 embryos extracted. One of the embryos resulted in the successful birth of her daughter, while the remaining three embryos were frozen and stored in cryogenic storage for possible future use. However, many complications arose that prevented Linda from using these embryos for future pregnancies: she divorced and entered menopause, soon finding herself with three unused embryos. 

Linda considered discarding them, but couldn’t find it within herself to do so. Thus, she turned to Snowflakes’ Open Hearts program, which was an adoption program that matched donors with families seeking embryo adoption. She specified her preference on what type of family she wanted her embryo to stay with, which was a white, married Christian couple living in the United States. Decades later, the embryos were matched with the Pierces, a family that perfectly matched her preferences.

Lindsey and Tim Pierce had been attempting to conceive for seven years, but they were unable to due to fertility complications. Therefore, they chose embryo adoption as a hopeful alternative for a child. After matching with Linda, two of the embryos were transferred. One of them was implanted successfully, which led to the birth of Thaddeus. 

The Significance of This Birth in the Scientific World

Thaddeus Daniel Pierce’s birth was so significant within the scientific world because it broke the record for being the oldest embryo that resulted in a healthy birth, with the embryo having been frozen for around 30.5 years. This birth proved many medical experts’ claims that storage time alone didn’t significantly impact embryo viability. This birth showed that even after decades of cryogenic storage, there was no significant impact on survival or development.

Furthermore, it also renewed debates about what will happen to unused embryos. Right now, in the U.S. alone, there are approximately 1.5 million frozen embryos that reside in storage, yet many families who struggle with infertility and want an embryo are unable to access them. This raised questions about the financial barriers surrounding fertility treatments and the legal statuses of the embryos themselves.   

In the end, the birth of Thaddeus Daniel Pierce represents an incredible shift in the scientific and medical landscape, as it demonstrated the potential power of cryopreservation, as well as the durability of human embryos when preserved under the right conditions. His birth validates decades of embryology, cryobiology, and cryology research, demonstrating that embryos can still remain viable for decades without any measurable decline in health or development potential. This level of preservation was something that was seen as impossible before.