The First Baby Is Born Through In Vitro Fertilisation

On 25 July 1978, Louise Brown was born at Oldham General Hospital in Oldham, England, having been conceived through work carried out at nearby Dr Kershaw's Cottage Hospital in Royton. Her delivery marked the first successful birth of a human conceived through in vitro fertilisation, a clinical procedure in which an egg is fertilised by sperm outside the human body. The Latin phrase in vitro literally translates to in glass, reflecting early biological experiments that cultivated biological tissues in glassware such as test tubes or petri dishes. Although popular media quickly adopted the informal phrase test tube babies to describe children conceived this way, laboratory procedures typically made use of wider and shallower petri dishes to culture the cells.

The clinical breakthrough in England was achieved through the collaborative work of physiologist Robert Edwards, gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe, and embryologist Jean Purdy. In Louise Brown's case, the team used natural cycle in vitro fertilisation, meaning her mother did not receive drug treatment to stimulate the ovaries. Decades after their work transformed reproductive medicine, Edwards received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2010. Steptoe and Purdy could not be considered for the honour because the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously, and both had died before the award was granted.