As I already said here, Maria do Carmo and her husband wanted to begin a new stage of their married life. They wanted to have children. They thought of everything, including preparing the rooms for the children and, above all, the necessary savings they would have to make. They were eager to confirm the signs of their first pregnancy. But, contrary to expectations, month after month was disenchantment. Initial hope turned into disappointment. Restlessness. Suffering, indeed.
Finally, the scheme they devised in 1975, with the intervention of Doctor Silva, worked. However, instead of initially planned, they were left with a single child.
Interestingly, just three years after Carmo’s night with José Silva, Louise Brown was born, in Manchester, on July 25, 1978, who was conceived using an innovative artificial technique. The first test tube baby in the History of Medicine.
The “service” then provided by Doctor José Silva would no longer be needed again. The new era of Medically Assisted Procreation had begun.
The method of fertilizing the egg by sperm in vitro it is due to British scientist Robert Edwards (1925-2013) who managed to provide fertilization in the laboratory followed by implantation in Louise’s mother’s uterus. He conceived and implemented fertilization outside the woman’s body, from the perspective of treating sterility. The pioneering fertilization team in vitro (shortly known as IVF) also involved gynecologist Patrick Steptoe and nurse Jean Purdy. A historic breakthrough.
From then on, in terms of family planning, the Reproductive Medicine component would acquire great importance at a global level, despite criticism from some conservative sectors associated with moral and religious issues.
The IVF technique, shortly after, began to be widely used throughout the world to treat infertility. In Portugal, it was the obstetrician António Pereira Coelho who introduced fertilization in vitro. The first Portuguese child thus conceived was born in 1986. However, it was only in 2006 that the entity that regulates the different techniques was created: National Council for Medically Assisted Procreation.
Following the success achieved by IVF, other techniques were developed. In 1983, the first child was born as a result of the transfer of a cryopreserved embryo (liquid nitrogen allows the activity of the embryo’s cells to be preserved at temperatures between -156 and -196 °C).
Many years after Louise’s birth, Sir Robert would be awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine and Physiology in 2010. Consecration, although late, very fair.
franciscogeorge@icloud.com
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