In vitro fertilization is one of the most important public health achievements of the XXth century. Female infertility has been an important issue throughout history, which manifested itself in the inability to conceive a child. In vitro fertilization is a process of fertilizing an egg, which transpires outside of a woman’s body (Lui et al., 2019). Once the egg is fertilized, it is put back in the host’s body, thus beginning pregnancy.
The first successful case of in vitro fertilization was in 1978. The specific individuals responsible for the birth of the first test-tube child are British physiologist Patrick Steptoe and gynaecologist Robert Edwards (Dow, 2017). Public health effort was limited, as the they had to rely on philanthropic funding and staff working for free (Dow, 2017). The majority of the experimental work was conducted in Oldham, while the birth itself transpired in Oldham General Hospital.
An important role was played by the mass media that brought this discovery to the public attention. Before 1978, Edwards and Steptoe had been criticized for their experimental work. They had to rely on health correspondents to achieve positive publicity. The specific organizations that helped them were the Daily Mail and Manchester Evening News. Afterwards, the story went viral, as it was published in British as well as international press.
The fact that test-tube child was born in a public hospital signifies the involvement of the British healthcare system. Edwards worked at the Department of Physiology at the University of Cambridge. As the procedure of in vitro fertilization was reviewed and accepted, it began to be used as a popular method of working around infertility. As a result, pregnancy rates have increased, as infertile couples gained an opportunity to have children.
References
Dow, K. (2017). ‘The men who made the breakthrough’: How the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in 1978. Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online, 4, 59-67.
Lui, M. W. E., Yeung, W. S., Ho, P. C., & Ng, E. H. (2019). In vitro fertilisation in Hong Kong: the situation in 2019. Hong Kong Medical Journal, 25, 468-472.