In vitro Fertilization

• Author: Maureen McTeer
• Pages: 9-19

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– chapter one –

In vitro Fertilization

INTRODUCTION

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is the core reproductive technology. It involves

extracting ova from a woman’s ovaries and fertilizing one or more of these

ova with sperm to create a human embryo. Originally used in cattle to

enhance not only herd quality, but also reproductive control and nan-

cial prot, IVF was rst proposed for use in women in very specic cir-

cumstances where their fallopian tubes were either damaged, diseased, or

absent. In these cases, IVF was a tool to circumvent, not cure, a woman’s

infertility, merely bypassing a physiological problem to allow the human

embryo to be inserted directly into the woman’s womb, where it would

hopefully implant in the uterine wall, begin to develop, and result in both

a viable pregnancy and a healthy live birth.

is was the case with the British mother of Louise Brown, the rst

baby born using IVF. Since then, estimates are that more than  mil-

lion children have been born worldwide using IVF alone or used with

one of its reproductive oshoots. e Canadian Fertility and Androl-

ogy Society estimates that  percent of couples seek medical advice for

infertility- related problems and that fully two-thirds of them need spe-

cialist interventions. One in six remains the most frequent estimate for

couples unable to conceive after one full year of regular unprotected

sexual intercourse, a gure that has remained constant for decades.