AKIPRESS.COM - A baby has been born in China to a surrogate mother four years after his parents died in a car crash, Chinese media reported.

The couple, who died in 2013, had frozen several embryos hoping to have a child through IVF.

After the accident, their parents fought a protracted legal battle to be allowed to use the embryos.

The boy was born in December to a surrogate from Laos and The Beijing News first reported the case this week.

The newspaper explained how the lack of precedent for a case of this kind had forced the deceased couple's parents through a legal minefield before the surrogacy could proceed, BBC reported.

At the time of the accident, the embryos were stored safely in a Nanjing hospital, frozen at minus 196 degrees in a liquid nitrogen tank.

A court battle gave the four grandparents-to-be the right over the fertilised eggs.

There was no precedent as to whether they could inherit their children's frozen embryos, according to reports.