Louise Joy Brown was born July 25, 1978. She weight 5 pound and 12 ounces. She was a perfectly normal, healthy baby girl. She was also the first human baby ever successfully produced by a procedure called in vitro fertilization. Now, IVF seems run of the mill, but at the time it was such a controversial procedure that doctors video taped the cesarean section birth just to prove that Louise’ mother, Lesley, had no fallopian tubes.
The Browns tried to give Louis and her sister Natalie normal lives, but the furor over the first “test tube” babies has left the girls under scrutiny for much of their lives. Religious leaders, and even scientists, questioned the moral implications of the procedure that gave them life. The Brown family just feels blessed.
“If it wasn’t for Bob Edwards and Patrick Steptoe, I wouldn’t have this family,” Lesley Brown commented two years ago on her daughter’s 30th birthday. “Especially now I’ve lost my husband.” John Brown died from lung cancer in 2006.
32 years and four million IVF births later, the procedure is still controversial, it’s creators have been rewarded with a Nobel Prize. Louise and her family are proud to have been a part of it:
“It’s fantastic news. Me and mum are so glad that one of the pioneers of IVF has been given the recognition he deserves,” Brown said today in a statement released by her and her mother. “We hold Bob in great affection and are delighted to send our personal congratulations to him and his family at this time.”
