Test tube babyIn 1978, in England, Louise Joy Brown, the first test tube baby was born in Oldham. She had been conceived through the technique of in-vitro fertilization. She weighed 5-lbs 12-ozs, and was delivered by Caesarean section at Oldham District General Hospital. By 25 Jul 1999, her 21st birthday, more than 300,000 babies have been born throughout the world using in vitro fertilisation (IVF), 29,000 of them in Britain. Brown is now a nursery nurse in Bristol. IVF began with Dr Robert Edwards, of Cambridge, who was keen to extend work on animals to treat women with blocked Fallopian tubes, which prevent eggs from travelling from the ovaries to the womb, where they can be fertilised, “It struck me what we should be trying to do was pluck the egg from the ovary and fertilise it in the laboratory,” he said. He collaborated with Patrick Steptoe, a gynaecologist in Oldham, who he met while lecturing at the Royal Society of Medicine. The Browns were already patients with Steptoe. |
