‘Cellfies’ mean the family album can begin from the moment of fertilisation in petri dish

FOR anyone born before the 1950s their earliest baby pictures are likely to be at a few days old.

Fast-forward several decades and parents could take home an image of their child just 12 weeks after conception thanks to the advent of ultrasound and cheap printers. But groundbreaking fertility technology is allowing the family album to begin at the moment of fertilisation with parents increasingly asking for images of their children when they are just a few cells in a petri dish.

In recent years, IVF clinics have developed cutting-edge time-lapse photography which was designed to monitor cell development in the first few days, so that doctors can pick the healthiest embryo for implantation in the womb and boost the chances of having a baby.

And now the Embryoscope technique has allowed parents to witness the mysterious beginnings of their child’s life earlier than ever before.

Clinics will soon start trialling technology to allow prospective mothers and fathers to log on to the live footage as the embryos are developing so they can “watch over” their offspring while still in the lab.

Professor Charles Kingsland, of the Hewitt Fertility Centre at Liverpool, said: “Time-lapse technology has allowed us to get all these images from the first few days after conception and put them on a USB stick so that parents have pictures of their children, literally, from day one, when they are still in the laboratory.

Jaycie Jones, now two, was one of the first babies to have the new timelapse treatment with Care Fertility in Nottingham, which means her parents Paula Chapman, 38, and Paul Jones, 35, were able to keep a complete record of development, from just a few cells in a dish, right up to her birth. Wanda Georgiades, director of operations at Care Fertility, said it was becoming more common for parents to ask to see the “cellfie” images.

“We send a link to the patients with their time-lapse film direct from the incubator which begins from fertilisation of eggs and sperm. One couple played it on their TV for their friends to watch.”