So with the discovery of Telomerase, which as I understand it, lengthens the telomeres in our chromosomes, or at least helps to preserve their lengths, a lot of the mystery of telomeres have been addressed. It seems however, that the enzyme itself isn't enough, since, over time, our telomeres do inevitably wither away leaving us pray to all sorts of horrible ends.

But it occurs to me, that even without the enzyme, there must be some function capable of completely restoring the length of the telomere gene, otherwise babies would be born with short telomeres since their chromosomes come directly from their parents. To my suprise however, I haven't found any articles or studies mentioning this caviat.

Is anyone aware of any studies showing at what point during the reproduction cycle that telomeres are replenished and what mechanisms exist thereof? Is it in the gametes, during the meiosis stages or somewhere during the development of the blastocyst? Is there any reason why this couldn't be practically applied in gerontology?