First Test Tube Baby Louise Brown Born

World’s first baby conceived through in vitro fertilisation (IVF), Louise Brown, was born at Oldham General Hospital in Oldham, England. Her birth followed a procedure developed by physiologist Robert Edwards and gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe, who had worked for years to treat infertility using fertilisation outside the human body. The successful delivery marked the first time a human egg fertilised in a laboratory resulted in a live birth. Louise Joy Brown was delivered by caesarean section to her parents, Lesley and John Brown, who had experienced infertility due to blocked fallopian tubes. The IVF procedure involved retrieving an egg from Lesley Brown, fertilising it with sperm in a laboratory dish, and then transferring the resulting embryo into her uterus. The pregnancy was closely monitored, and Louise was born weighing 5 pounds 12 ounces (2.6 kg). The development of IVF followed more than a decade of research beginning in the 1960s. In 2010, Robert Edwards was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the development of in vitro fertilisation. Since 1978, IVF has been used worldwide, resulting in millions of births. Clinics across Europe, North America, Asia, and other regions have adopted assisted reproductive technologies based on the original method pioneered in the UK.