A British couple has become the first in the world to both carry their baby.

The couple, Donna and Jasmine Francis-Smith, welcomed their baby Otis following a new IVF procedure.

As part of the procedure, known as ‘In Vivo Natural Fertilisation’, the embryo is incubated in the genetic mother’s womb and then transferred to the gestational mothers womb for the remainder of the pregnancy

Donna spoke to The Telegraph about their experience saying it has brought them closer together.

“You get a lot of same-sex couples where one person is doing the whole thing, and the one person is getting pregnant and giving birth, whereas with this we’re both involved in a massive way,” she said.

“It’s definitely brought us closer together emotionally. We’re a close couple anyway but we both have a special bond with Otis as well which was helped by the way we’ve done it.”

The procedure was carried out by London Women’s Clinic and the clinic’s medical director Nick Macklon said that this is the first time the procedure has been carried out successfully.

“This is the first time this has been done,” he said.

“It’s very exciting because it means that for lesbian couples wanting to have babies together both of them can be involved in actively creating the embryo and then creating the baby.”

Reciprocal IVF was recently introduced in Ireland at Sims IVF clinic. 

It is hoped that it’s introduction will soon see it’s inclusion under the Child and Family Relationships Act.

“The driver of this is that we knew the Child and Family Relationships Act was coming in. We knew that this would be a problem for those patients. But we also knew that if we had patients coming through in Ireland who are availing of this service it will create more traction and get a better conversation going. To protect both these people and other couples who want to do this.”