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Legislation seems likely to pass, enabling Britain to be the first country to offer 'three-parent births' (two mothers and one father) to overcome genetic defects associated by faults in mitochondria. This will involve replacement of part of an egg with material from a donor egg.

If this happens and baby Jack or baby Jill has one father and two mothers, what will be an appropriate name for the second mother?

WS2
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    Hang on a few months and we'll find out. Probably some variation on "donor". – Hot Licks Feb 05 '15 at 21:02
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    How about Maddy or Dummy? – 7caifyi Feb 05 '15 at 21:13
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    Mitochondrial mother perhaps? – WS2 Feb 05 '15 at 21:16
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    Mitochondrial DNA contributes little or nothing to a child’s personal characteristics and the donor should not therefore be regarded as a parent. Children born following mitochondria replacement will have inherited nuclear DNA from their parents and mitochondrial DNA from a donor. This would be a first for medical science and it raises the question of whether the contribution of mitochondrial DNA from a third person will impact on the future child’s sense of identity or on our concepts of parenthood.(Mitochondria paper - HFEA) – Misti Feb 05 '15 at 21:24
  • @MystiSinha It might well have been better had the mitochondrial donor not been described as a 'mother', or 'third parent'. But do you know a way of stopping the tabloid news media from talking about 'three-parent children' and depicting the whole thing as analogous to something out of Frankenstein. – WS2 Feb 05 '15 at 21:32
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    As I commented under @Josh61's answer, mitochondria are (important but) simply organelles. The ovum is getting an organelle transplant. Donor seems the most logical choice. There is a mother, a father, and a mitochondrial donor. It is much more akin to wanting to know who your new kidney's donor is than your biolgical parent in adoption. We are not the sum of our organ parts. A transplant recipient doesn't call the donor "Dad" or "Mom". – anongoodnurse Feb 05 '15 at 22:16
  • @medica Problem is, the popular media tends to set the agenda on these things, and the third party has already been established as a 'parent'. And the opposition of the churches, has tended to confirm this in the public mind. I think it will now be difficult to relegate the donor to a status anything less than a 'third parent', however desirable that might be. – WS2 Feb 06 '15 at 00:40
  • @WS2 - you asked for "an appropriate name for the second mother". If this is a crap shoot, or dictated by the press, you either have to wait for your answer, accept the media's already used label, or close this for being POB. You often muddy the waters after asking a question. What is your present question, then? – anongoodnurse Feb 06 '15 at 01:15
  • It will be "Other Mother" – DSKekaha Oct 13 '15 at 19:13

4 Answers4

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The treatment which the OP is referring to is mitochondrial replacement. A process that replaces the mother's mitochondria with that of a donor's. Since the mitochondria aren't responsible for inherited traits, it is not a real parentage issue

Therefore, it seems to me that the terms "donor", "genetic donor" or "mitochondrial donor" might be more appropriate.

Alana Saarinen, one of the people who were born using this technique before it was banned, seems to support my contention in a quote to BBC News

"A lot of people say I have facial features from my mum, my eyes look like my dad… I have some traits from them and my personality is the same too. I also have DNA from a third lady. But I wouldn't consider her a third parent, I just have some of her mitochondria."

Janus Bahs Jacquet
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Andrew Neely
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    Perhaps they meant 'second lady'. – WS2 Feb 05 '15 at 21:13
  • However small, the contribution from the donor has actually been determinant in giving birth to Miss. Alana. Psychological implications are understandably important!! –  Feb 05 '15 at 21:18
  • @Josh61 It is not just psychological. Presumably we wouldn't want Miss Alana marrying her mitochondrial brother 25 years down the road. The way it works with adoption (in the UK) is that the child has no right to know the natural parents until their 18th birthday - though the adoptive parents can find out, if they do not already know. – WS2 Feb 05 '15 at 21:25
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    @WS2 - There would be no problem with marrying one's "mito sibling" since one inherits mitochondria only from their mother. – Hot Licks Feb 05 '15 at 23:00
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    It's not true that mitochondrial dna isn't responsible for inherited traits. The whole point of using a third person's mitochondrial dna is to not use the mother's who presumably has an inheritable genetic disease of her mitochondrial dna. It's be more correct to say the mitochondrial dna doesn't influence any visible traits. Legally, the donor surely waives any rights to the child before donating, and the child may or may not view them emotionally as a "third parent", depending on their social relationship with the donor. –  Feb 05 '15 at 23:44
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    @HotLicks Would there be no danger in marrying a child of one's mitochondrial donor? Would that not be a form of incest? – WS2 Feb 06 '15 at 00:48
  • @WS2 - Depends on how you define "incest", but there would be no danger of genetic problems. – Hot Licks Feb 06 '15 at 00:52
  • @HotLicks But haven't the objections, from religious groups and others, been to do with the unknown genetic knock-on effects; also the slippery slope argument about opening up the way to designer babies. Isn't it because of these uncertainties that America does not seem ready to take up the procedure? – WS2 Feb 06 '15 at 10:27
  • @WS2 - What religious groups object to and what's true are not highly correlated. And I can't speak about "America" as a whole, but in the US the Republican party would use this sort of thing as a campaign issue, playing to their (right-wingnut) "base". This makes even left-of-center politicians afraid to touch it. – Hot Licks Feb 06 '15 at 12:24
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    @HotLicks It is interesting how different countries seem to become dug-in with objections on different issues. In America's case fertilisation interventions seem a no-go area, whilst in Europe it is GM foods that attract ideological objections. And both sets of arguments are remarkably similar - "slippery slope", "don't know where it will lead", "against the laws of nature" etc. – WS2 Feb 06 '15 at 13:11
  • @WS2, It's a moot point. All the Mitochondria is inherited from the mother directly. The father contributes none of the DNA. The DNA in question does not deal with character traits. There is no sexual mixing of DNA like in chromosomal DNA. The Mitochondria deals exclusively with energy production (ATP) in the cell, along with calcium regulation. – Andrew Neely Feb 06 '15 at 14:21
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Donor is the term used in this context. Donor parent may be an appropriate definition:

  • If the British procedure gets the green light, a baby conceived through the technique would receive its key genetic material from its mother and father, and just a small amount of DNA from a donor female, who would remain anonymous.
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    No, both women would be the biological parent: one contributing nucleic DNA and the other mitrochondrial DNA. – tchrist Feb 05 '15 at 20:48
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    @tchrist - While mitochondrial DNA is of course important, the total amount of mito DNA is far smaller than the amount of nuclear DNA, and the vast majority of the inherited traits of the child would be due to the nuclear DNA. – Hot Licks Feb 05 '15 at 21:04
  • I'm not sure about the anonymity. The child will have a clear interest in knowing who his third parent is, in the same way as a child born nowadays and placed for an adoption has an interest in and right to know who his/her natural parents are. – WS2 Feb 05 '15 at 21:19
  • I agree with you...though the psychological implications differ from person to person. I think that the donor contribution is important/determinant, that's why I'd keep the term 'parent' in a possible definition. –  Feb 05 '15 at 21:22
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    @tchrist - mitochondria are vital, but in no way are they unique, as is a biological mother's nucleic DNA. A mitochondria is an organelle. The egg is getting an organelle transplant. The donor is no more a mother than is the male donor of a liver "a father". – anongoodnurse Feb 05 '15 at 22:10
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is it going to be mito-mother

The word mitochondrion comes from the Greek μίτος, mitos, i.e. "thread", and χονδρίον, chondrion, i.e. "granule". please see: enter link description here

sojourner
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Mather. Thank Lewis Carroll for the portmanteaurrific precedent.

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