The world’s first IVF baby, Louise Brown was born in 1978 in the UK, Australia’s first IVF baby was born two years later. Initially treatment was only used for women with tube problems. Techniques soon improved to deal with other aspects of fertility. Two major developments in fertility treatment have been the use of ultrasound guided methods to collect eggs and the introduction of ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) to facilitate fertilization.
Treatment procedures are now very well developed with success rates approximately twice that of five years ago. In Australia, about 7,000 babies will be born this year with the help of fertility treatment. Around 1 in 20 babies are born in Australia annually as Assisted Reproductive Techniques improve and more couples seek assistance.
The general term for the things we do is called Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). The most common form of ART is ICSI which has overtaken IVF in the past three years.
Information and statistics on ART in Australia is provided by the National Perinatal Statistics Unit (NPSU) which is part of the University of New South Wales. You can visit the NPSU website at www.npsu.unsw.edu.au
Read on to find out more about pregnancy and fertility