Lesley Brown

I hadn't read about the sad death of Lesley Brown, mother of the first ever IVF baby Louise Brown, earlier this month.  It makes you realise quite how long ago it is since Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards carried out the pioneering work that led to Louise's birth in 1978.  IVF is so common now that we may not always appreciate quite how extraordinary it seemed to people at the time, and how much suspicion there was about what Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards had achieved.  It wasn't just the media or the general public expressing fears and concerns - the medical establishment was very unsupportive of what had been achieved.

In the coverage in the papers of Lesley's death, I came across a wonderful line in the Daily Mail which explained that - Two years ago it emerged that Louise was actually grown in a jar rather than a test-tube. The idea that Mail readers - and journalists - had for the past 32 years been under the misapprehension that IVF babies were being "grown" in test-tubes was enough to make the mind boggle, and perhaps illustrates the level of misunderstanding that still exists about infertility and IVF today.

It's hard to imagine what it must have been like for Lesley Brown with all the fears and concerns about IVF at the time - and it makes it very clear what a brave woman she was - and how much she wanted Louise.

an interview later...

I've just done an interview for LBC radio about IVF funding, which they'd linked to Robert Edwards getting the Nobel prize. It's such a shame that on the day one of our country's greatest scientists gets awarded for his ground-breaking work, we end up discussing how to cut all funding for an amazing treatment that was invented here. We carry out less fertility treatment in the UK, and considerably less funded treatment, than most of the rest of Europe - and yet this was a field in which we once led the world.

It always fascinates me when I do these interviews that there is a general assumption that the NHS is funding huge amounts of treatment at the moment, when in fact that isn't the case at all. It's a tiny percentage of the NHS budget and cutting it would cause such distress. Today the person interviewing me equated IVF with breast-enlargement operations for teenagers - it seems to get worse by the day...

Fertility pioneers at conference open to all

One of the two pioneers responsible for the birth of the first IVF baby thirty years ago is to speak at a conference open to all this Summer.

Professor Robert Edwards and his colleague Patrick Steptoe worked together to bring about the birth of Louise Brown in July 1978. Now, thirty years on, he will mark the occasion with a special address at the bi-annual National Infertility Day conference in London.

Other speakers at the conference will be addressing a variety of issues linked to infertility, and amongst them will also be Professor Andre Van Steirtehem who developed the technique of injecting sperm right into eggs known as ICSI. ICSI has transformed the prospects for men with sperm problems, many of whom have been able to father their own children thanks to the process.

Bookings are already open for National Infertility Day, and you can find all the latest news and developments on the website, www.nationalinfertilityday.com