The UK has approved three-person babies

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority has said clinics can seek licences for the procedure. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Babies made from two women and one man have been approved by the UK’s fertility regulator.

The BBC wrote that this historic and controversial move is to prevent children being born with deadly genetic diseases.

Doctors in Newcastle – who developed the advanced form of IVF – are expected to be the first to offer the procedure and have already appealed for donor eggs, the BBC added.

The first such child could be born, at the earliest, by the end of 2017.

Some families have lost multiple children to incurable mitochondrial diseases, which can leave people with insufficient energy to keep their heart beating, according to the BBC.

The diseases are passed down from only the mother so a technique using a donor egg as well as the mother’s egg and father’s sperm has been developed, the BBC indicated.

The resulting child has a tiny amount of their DNA from the donor, but the procedure is legal and reviews say it is ethical and scientifically ready, it concluded.

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