The girl who changed the world: how was the fate of the first 'test tube baby'
'14.12.2020'
Source: onliner
Technically, the world's first child conceived using artificial insemination technology was created in a petri dish. But Louise Brown got the nickname "test-tube baby" - because it is somehow shorter, more capacious and understandable for a mass audience, explains onliner.
Louise Brown was born in 1978. The attention of many representatives of the progressive and conservative world was riveted to her conception. Debates about ethics, morality, spirituality and religion have gathered around a 2,6 kilogram baby as it emerges from the womb.
Path of failure
“On the day I was born, my mom had to be driven to the operating room for a caesarean section in pitch darkness. Only the light of the lantern illuminated this path. Only a few doctors knew who she was. My parents did not want it to become known and written in the newspapers, ”said Louise Brown in an interview on the occasion of her 30th birthday.
The girl's birth was kept secret. When her father first visited his daughter at the hospital, she was guarded by police so that none of the meticulous reporters could slip into the corridors of the hospital.
Louise's birth instantly became a global sensation, marking a turning point in fertility treatment and bringing hope to millions of couples who were unable to have a baby. Since then, millions of babies around the world have been born using in vitro fertilization technology, in which the sperm and egg are mixed outside the body and the resulting embryos are transferred into the uterus. In the United States alone, 2010 children were born with IVF in 59.
However, in the 1970s, this technology caused a lot of controversy and resentment from the conservative, religious part of society. In addition, in the early stages of IVF development, there were more failures than successful examples. The pioneers of this technology, biologist Robert Edwards and gynecologist Patrick Steptoe, have been working on it for a decade. The first developed a method for fertilizing human eggs in a laboratory, the second - a method for obtaining eggs from the ovaries.
On the subject: In the United States, they created a test to detect diseases and assess the intelligence of an unborn child before IVF
By the mid-1970s, 60 couples were being tested, but none of these attempts were successful. Only in one case it was possible to induce a pregnancy, but that was also an ectopic: the fetus grew in the fallopian tube, and not in the uterus. This pregnancy had to be terminated.
When Louise's parents met with Patrick Steptoe, he warned them that the chance of success was "one in a million."
However, behind any successful technology there is a history of unsuccessful attempts to implement it. This is the scientific way of understanding and improving technologies, thanks to which we live in the world - as it is.
Church against
Despite the fact that artificial insemination technology was an experimental and unreliable method, Leslie and John Browns still decided to entrust their future to doctors. Leslie was a housewife, John worked on the railroad - an ordinary British family, not outstanding, not fanatically religious, but with a heavy burden of sterility.
“When I was born in 1978, masturbation was considered a sin for a man, but if you think about it, how else did my father give his sperm to fertilize an egg? - asked a rhetorical question at a scientific conference in Malaga this summer, Louise Brown. - The Church was against it, of course. There was a meeting, and the message sounded that maybe I will not have a soul. But my parents didn't pay attention to it. "
Various religious groups have loudly voiced their moral objections. They viewed the creation of human life in the laboratory as a violation of sacred order and an encroachment on divine functions. The Catholic Church today condemns IVF, since this procedure, according to the clergy, violates the sanctity of the act of conception, strikes at paternity and leads to the destruction of spare embryos, which are prepared for the procedure.
However, in 1978, Cardinal Albino Luciani, who was soon elected Pope John Paul I, did not criticize the parents of the "Test Tube Baby", stressing that they simply wanted to have a baby. This helped to slightly reduce the degree of negativity towards the Brown family.
Critics scared with dire predictions that treatment could lead to dire deviations during pregnancy or after childbirth. But Mrs. Brown was determined.
Blood box
She got pregnant on the first try. In agreement with the government, the birth of a child even had to be filmed. This was done in order to obtain documentary evidence of the relationship between the child and the mother. And before the baby was first handed over to a woman in labor, the girl underwent about 60 different tests that proved her normalcy. The public attention that fell on Mrs. Brown was overwhelming for the quiet housewife.
“My mom got tons of letters from people. They were mostly positive. But there were letters that exuded hatred, - said Louise Brown. - Parents received a terrible box from America. Inside was a broken test tube, fake blood, and what looked like a fetus. The box was with the threat that the senders would come to admire them. "
After the birth, the girl for some time attracted the attention of the whole world. The family returned home from the hospital to find that the reporters had set up a camp on their street. For several months, Leslie could not safely leave the house: reporters chased her everywhere. Therefore, the Brown family decided to move to another house, where there was a backyard and their daughter could safely walk in the fresh air.
Louise's parents even sometimes traveled with their daughter to various scientific conferences to demonstrate to the world: the procedure is safe, the child was born normal. After a few years, these travels ceased. The Browns wanted Louise to be just their daughter, not a superstar.
At the age of 4, the parents decided to explain to their daughter how she was born. She soon had to go to school, and there would certainly be questions from other first-graders: "Why are you called Frankenbeby?" Therefore, the girl was shown a video in which the caesarean section and the birth of Louise were captured.
“Mom said that she needed the help of doctors to show me. But I don't think I really understood the meaning of all this until I was a few years older, ”Louise recalled. “Behind this simple statement was nine years of grief as my parents struggled to start a family.”
Four years later, the second daughter of the Browns was born with IVF. In 2007, when the head of the family died, the couple had two daughters and three grandchildren.
Louise is now 42 years old. She lives in Bristol with her husband, works from nine to five, brings up two guys. They were naturally conceived. The children had to explain why their mother ended up in school biology textbooks.
