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The world鈥檚 first test-tube baby Louise Brown is celebrating her 40th birthday this week. Since the ground-breaking development of in vitro fertilisation which led to her birth, more than eight million babies have been born using this method. Eggs are extracted from a woman鈥檚 ovaries, fertilised with sperm in a lab and then an embryo is put back inside the woman鈥檚 womb. This week鈥檚 Health Check is devoted to this remarkable technology, with studio guest Ian Cooke, Emeritus professor at the University of Sheffield, who was the UK鈥檚 very first specialist in reproductive medicine.

To find out how it all began, Professor Sally Sheard, medical historian at Liverpool University, looks back at the history of IVF, and the arrival in 1978 of the babies people never expected to see: Those conceived outside the human body in a test tube.

In some countries there are attempts to provide fertility treatment at low cost. A few years ago Claudia travelled to Cape Town in South Africa to visit a clinic trying to keep costs to a minimum. They use lower doses of drugs to stimulate the ovaries and produce eggs, and also carry out fewer on-going blood tests of women鈥檚 hormone levels. The patients don鈥檛 pay to use the hospital or the lab, just for the medication. At the clinic in Tygerberg hospital, Claudia met programme director Dr Thabo Matsaseng, and one of his patients Nosiphiwo. She was ostracised by her family after years of trying, in vain, to have a baby. After having fertility treatment at a fraction of the usual price she ended up having twins and now says she is a completely different person.

One of the advantages of methods using less stimulation and monitoring is a reduction in stress for those undergoing treatment. IVF can be gruelling physically and emotionally and often doesn鈥檛 work. Julia Leigh, who lives in Sydney, Australia, is an acclaimed Australian novelist and the author of a memoir called Avalanche. It鈥檚 a love story which recounts her personal experiences of having IVF, which sadly for her was ultimately unsuccessful.

Photo: Nosiphiwo with her husband and IVF twins. Credit Claudia Hammond)