Australia Weather News

Anxious families have been calling Adelaide fertility clinics after storms across South Australia led to embryos being destroyed.

About a dozen families received the distressing news their embryos, waiting to be transferred, had been compromised due to back-up generators failing during Wednesday's destructive storms and subsequent power outage.

Amy Iljcesen had used the Flinders Fertility clinic's services after trying to have a child for years and still has frozen embryos at the clinic.

It took five years for the couple to conceive and Ms Iljcesen said they were "very lucky to get there" on their first IVF attempt.

"We called this morning and they assured us that everything was fine with our frozen embryos," she said.

"The embryos represent life, love. Everything. You put your whole life into it. Wanting it. So that's just your little miracle sitting there.

"Some people think it's just frozen in a test tube. It's not. It's love, it's life. Unless you have been through it you can't understand it."

She is now a mother to six-week old Maddie.

Ms Iljcesen cannot imagine what the families who lost embryos in Wednesday's state-wide blackout are going through.

She said the IVF treatment alone was gruelling process for families.

"They'd be absolutely distraught and emotional," she said.

"It's an emotional rollercoaster as it is — just doing the whole process. Let alone getting that news."

Flinders Fertility has offered condolences to families who were affected by the power outage and lost viable embryos.

A clinic spokesperson said a "loss of power … compromised its incubators, affecting the embryos".

"Despite every effort by our scientists, the embryos are no longer viable," the spokesperson said in a statement to the ABC.

"It doesn't matter if you take them to court … it will never bring them back."

Of the four fertility clinics in South Australia, Flinders Fertility was the only clinic to have its systems fail during the power outage.