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Simon Fishel
Care Fertility
What is IVF?
Simon Fishel defines IVF as a procedure that allows doctors to fertilise eggs outside the body and implant them back into the woman’s womb.
Transcript
So IVF was first conceived as an idea to help women who didn't have a functioning, what we call fallopian tube. That's the part of their reproductive system that takes the egg from the ovary, fertilise in that place and down into the womb, where it grows.Many women had an absent fallopian tube or a diseased or damaged one, and it was decided there's a possibility we could recover these eggs from the ovary, fertilise them outside the body, bypass the fallopian tube, and put the resultant fertilised egg, which is now an embryo, probably at about four cells in those days, back into the womb. Would it take, would it implant, would it make a baby? And it did. And it was first thought of as a possibility, roundabout 1940. And eventually in 1978 in the UK as we know, the first baby was born using this technology. So it was just believed to be for that specific type of infertility problem. And we know it's mushroomed from there.