First test-tube baby is back where it all started
THE world’s first test-tube baby last night returned to the region where she was successfully conceived with a radical new treatment four decades ago.
Louise Brown, 39, was born in Oldham General Hospital after the first successful IVF treatment on July 25, 1978.
Her conception, at Dr Kershaw’s Cottage Hospital in Royton, made headlines across the globe. It was the result of 12 years’ pioneering research by the late Dr Patrick Steptoe, a gynaecologist at Oldham, and Cambridge researcher Dr Robert Edwards.
Her parents Lesley and John Brown had tried to conceive naturally for nine years before they opted for treatment.
At the time, the revolutionary treatment was viewed with suspicion, but since then more than six-million babies have been born across the world with the help of IVF.
In 1978 it brought international attention to Lesley and John Brown’s doorstep, something the new parents were not prepared for.
“There were 100 journalists outside the house blocking the way when they brought me home from Oldham General Hospital,” Louise told the M.E.N.
The intense focus on the couple started before Louise was born and after her arrival, Lesley and John took their little girl out of the limelight. However Lesley and John knew they would not be able to shield her from what would become a life-long interest in her birth.
When Louise turned four, she watched a film about her own birth with her parents who explained to her why she was a baby like no other.
“They explained that they needed help from Patrick Steptoe and Bob Edwards to have me,” says Louise.
“The reason they told me was because I was about to go to school and they knew reporters would try to take pictures of me and that other children and teachers would mention it.
“I don’t know if I fully understood it. I gained other information from listening to my mum and dad do interviews with the media.
“At times when I was teenager I did wonder ‘why me?’ ‘why was I born different?’ but everyone goes through those phases,” she explains.
For Louise that has always been her ‘normal’ but says she has only ever tried to lead a ordinary life.
“It is quite scary sometimes realising that there are over six million people in the world and it all started with me.
“The really special people were my mum and dad and the pioneers Bob Edwards and Patrick Steptoe who made it happen at Kershaw’s Cottage Hospital in Lancashire almost 40 years ago.”
Louise, who lives in Bristol, now has two children of her own – Cameron, 10, and Aiden, four – with husband Wesley Mullinder.
Louise visited CARE Fertility Manchester last night to celebrate the clinic’s £5m re-launch with its founder Dr John Webster, who assisted Patrick Steptoe when she was born in 1978.
Her visit on Tuesday was also an opportunity for the former M.E.N. journalist who coined the term ‘test tube’ baby to meet Louise.
Peter Harris, who was the M.E.N.’s medical journalist at the time, was one of the first writers to break Dr Steptoe’s pioneering work to the region and the world.