INDIA’S FIRST TEST TUBE BABY IS 3 2 ,A MOM AND A RAY OF HOPE
Dr Indira Hinduja had attempted IVF with 17 couples before s he met the Chawdas . Mani Chawda, then 24, was a part-time teacher; her hus - band, Shyam, a BMC worker. They had been trying for four years . They didn’t unders tand the details of in vitro fertilis ation, but they were willing to give it a s hot. “I jus t wanted a baby,” s ays Mani.
The clinical trial was free, which was good becaus e the couple was n’t earning much; they had to borrow money to pay for the hormone injections . And then, s uddenly, they had made medical his tory.
The Chawdas found s ucces s on the firs t attempt, had a regulation pregnancy, and arrived at the mas s ive, colonial King Edward Memorial Hos pital in central Mumbai, in labour, on Augus t 6, 1986.
“I s till remember it was 3.30 pm,” Dr Hinduja s ays .
“To be s afe, we chos e to do a C-s ection.” Dr Hinduja had roped in a trus ted peer, the late Dr Kus um Zaveri, practis ing at JJ Hos pital back then, to as s is t “in cas e my hands s tarted to s hake”.
Baby Hars ha, India’s firs t IVF s ucces s , was born a few hours later. Thirty years on, the little group made his tory again. Hars ha conceived the traditional way, and,Dr Hinduja performed the delivery, and doctors acros s the country celebrated.
“It was proof that IVF babies lead a normal life,” Hinduja s ays . “To watch Hars ha grow up, marry… s he now has a boy and a girl. The whole experience has been incredible and I’m grateful I was part of it.”
THE EXPERIMENTS
Hinduja s ays s he was nine when s he firs t realis ed s he wanted to be a doctor. She had broken a bone, been admitted to hos pital, and was mes meris ed by thes e adults in lab coats who s eemed to have all the ans wers .
By age 32, s he was an MD, purs uing a PhD in IVF res earch via Mumbai’s National Ins titute for Res earch in Reproductive Health.
“Since the world’s firs t IVF baby was born in 1978, it had been a hot topic,” Hinduja s ays . Back then, the couples barely had any ques tions . “I us ed to draw a chart and explain the entire proces s . They’d tell me to do anything but give them a baby,” Dr Hinduja s ays .
When the Chawdas ’ embryo was born in its petri dis h, Dr Hinduja couldn’t believe it had finally worked. If they were really careful, and really lucky, they were going to go down in the record books .
It was a confus ing time for the Chawdas . “I remember I mis s ed one injection and Dr Hinduja s colded me s o much,” s ays Mani, now 57, laughing. “I als o took part in a running race held on Sports Day at my s chool. She told me I s houldn’t have done that.”
Mani had a little trouble at her baby s hower too. The Chawdas hadn’t told her extended family s he had conceived through IVF; they dis covered when the media turned up at the s hower.
“Once they knew, there were all s orts of comments ,” s he s ays .
“Some s aid the baby would be born with four hands ; other wondered if it was even my hus band’s . But Dr Hinduja had as s ured us that the baby was ours . We als o found s upport in Harkis an Mehta [then editor of the Gujarati weekly Chitralekha], who travelled to the US and returned with photographs of IVF babies . He s howed them to us and told us how a tes t-tube baby was normal abroad.”
Then Hars ha was born, and Mani began to receive letters from all over the country. “They were congratulating me. One woman came all the way from Worli to our hous e in Joges hwari to dis cus s IVF becaus e s he wanted to do it too.”
When I was trying to understand what it meant to beat est tube baby, my parents caled Dr Hinduja. She said ,‘ Think of Sh ak tim a an, who go this powers from the five natural elements. You are like any other baby, just the method by which you were m ade was different.’
HARSHA CHAWDA, 32, India’s first IVF baby
‘I WAS LIKE SHAKTIMAAN’
If dealing with an IVF pregnancy was tough, telling Hars ha that s he was an IVF baby was tougher. “I figured it out,” s ays Hars ha, 32, a former corporate s ecretary and now s tay-at-home-mom. “Every year the media would come to take photographs of me on my birthday. I’d hear them refer to me as a tes t-tube baby.”
It didn’t bother her, s he s ays , until s he began us ing tes t tubes in her s cience lab at s chool. “I wondered if I was an experiment too. I was very ups et,” s he recalls . Her parents , uncertain of how to explain it to her, called up Hinduja.
“She told me that I was jus t like any other baby. It was jus t the method by which I was made that was different. She gave me the example of Shaktimaan, who received his powers from the five natural elements ,” s ays Hars ha, laughing.
They kept in touch over the years . When it came time for Hars ha to have her own babies , it was Dr Hinduja s he turned to. “She’s like my godmother,” s he s ays .
ADVANCES IN IVF
Hinduja has helped over 15,000 couples with IVF treatment s o far. She is als o a pioneer in GIFT (Gamete Intrafallopian Trans fer) treatments in India, where the egg is fertilis ed within the fallopian tube.
“I’m proud to have done my work with limited res ources and training,” Dr Hinduja s ays . “Today, couples are more aware and knowledgeable. They decide at what s tage in their life they’d like a child. The s ucces s rate in IVF has increas ed too, from about 13% of couples to about 55%, in my experience.”
The cos t remains a major challenge, s he adds . “And we have done no work to figure out how this technique can be us ed in cancer res earch.” What has n’t changed is the expres s ion on every couple’s face when they find out it’s worked. “They look at you as if you’re a god,” s he s ays , s miling.