At 40 years of the "test tube", 8 million babies are born through assisted fertilization

The birth of the first "test-tube" Louise Brown 40 years ago, marks a turning point in the fight against infertility and since 1978 has facilitated the # 39, arrival in the world of more than eight million children.

Louise was defined as "the child miracle". His birth, the [1945-19003] 25 July 1978, in Manchester, England was hailed as an event beyond the imagination, to such an extent that the New York Times published an editorial entitled "Designing Them". ;inconceivable".

Today, the first person born through in vitro fertilization is no longer an exception, as confirmed by the increasing use of this technique worldwide

. when in 2010 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine to the British scientist Robert Edwards "father" of the IVF controversy broke out and even from the Vatican, harsh criticisms were issued. The president of the Pontifical Academy for Life at the time, Monsignor Ignacio Carrasco de Paula, defined the prize "irrelevant" for ethical reasons and accused the biologist of being the cause of the "oocyte market" . the technique involves extracting ovaries from a woman's ovary, artificially maturing them, inseminating them in vitro (usually by "intracytoplastic sperm injection"), growing the embryos, selecting them and to implant them in the uterus, If all goes well, the pregnancy begins and ends.

At the time, the Browns were criticized for their choice and received many letters with threats. Even when Louis was three months old, his mother received by mail a package which, once opened, was filled with artificial blood and contained unpleasant threatening phrases.

"My mother never imagined that badisted fertilization would reach such a level of development. These 40 years, with millions of children born, it's amazing to think that it all started with she and my father, "said Louis, also a mother, in a dialogue with the press.The road was made on foot, as evidenced by the most recent data presented at the Congress of the European Association of Human Reproduction and of Embryology (ESHRE), which was held recently in Barcelona.

They indicate that if in 40 years more than eight million children were born by IVF those who come into the world today, every year, thanks to this technique are more than half a million as it indicates the result of more than two million cycles of treatments carried out.

In Europe Spain is the country who resorts the most to badisted fertilization: only in 2015, 119,875 treatments were performed. 19659002] According to ESHRE data, the current pregnancy rates for this technique seem to have stabilized in Europe by 36%, while those obtained by ovodonation are increasing, reaching 50%. The President of the European Consortium ESHRE for Follow-up In Vitro Fertilization, Christian de Geyter, baderted that "the rate of pregnancy by in vitro fertilization has stabilized but ovodonation is increasing and even the recurrence of frozen embryos has increased by 7% in 2015 compared to 2014 ".

However, the expert explained that "the availability of IVF treatments in Europe is varied: for example, Denmark and Belgium offer more than 2,500 treatment cycles per million inhabitants and more than Other countries, such as Austria and Italy. "

In Latin America, Argentina was a pioneer in the field of badisted fertility legislation.In 2013, a law was promulgated guaranteeing unrestricted access to its citizens to a new type of right: that of fertility, free

And already in 2010, Buenos Aires in the first in the region to provide this service by public health.

Meanwhile, d & # 39; other Latin American countries adapted their legislation to expand access to IVF

According to World Health Organization Health (WHO), One in four couples worldwide problems in having children In the more developed regions, the fertility rate has already fallen below what is necessary to maintain the population, something

That is why several European countries and the region have set up measures to promote births and one of them is to expand access to fertility treatments da, which are very expensive and generally accessible to people having a greater purchasing power.

The truth is that none of this would have been possible, or even imaginable, without the birth of Louis Brown. Forty years ago, "the miraculous child" opened a debate – which is still going on – not only about legislation but also about motherhood, which has proven to be a much more flexible concept than ever before. He did not seem to be.