25 July 2008 12:00
Thirty years ago today Louise Brown created history when she was the first baby born via IVF. Three million babies around the world have followed in Brown’s footsteps, being born through continually-improving IVF technology.
Brown is now a mother-of-one herself and plans to celebrate her birthday with a low-key meal with her family and friends. Yet, for fertility experts Brown’s birthday is no low-key event: It marks the first successful case of the technology which has changed the lives of women around the world.
Modern IVF technology has evolved significantly over the three decades since it was first used successfully. Each year 10, 000 Australian babies are born using IVF. The director of IVF Australia Michael Chapman has said, "The technology has been significantly refined to a point where our success rate has doubled in the past 10 years and I see it hitting 50 per cent within another five."
Professor Chapman predicts that in the next five years IVF will evolve to a point where the genetic make-up of eggs can be screened to assure their success, and within the next 30, he says that babies could be conceived with artificial sperm and grown in man-made wombs.
Source: smh.com.au