Around 6,000 babies a year are born in the UK to otherwise infertile couples as a result of in vitro fertilisation.
But the techniques used often arouse huge controversy and some say the process can falsely raise would-be parents' hopes since it only has a success rate of around 15%.
There have also been cases of fertilised eggs being mixed up in the laboratory and the wrong embryo being implanted in the woman, leading to fears about how the process is carried out.
What is IVF?
IVF was developed in the 1970s. The first British test tube baby was Louise Brown, who was born in 1977.
Some 30,000 test tube babies have been born in the UK since then.
There are several different techniques, but the main process involves the women taking fertility drugs to help her produce more eggs.
The eggs are then harvested and fertilised in the laboratory.
The woman is given hormone drugs to prepare her womb to receive the fertilised eggs.
The fertilised eggs are placed inside the womb and a normal pregnancy follows.
Posted by Vanessa at January 23, 2006 12:21 AM | TrackBack