On 25 July 1978, a baby was born in Oldham General Hospital, England, just like many others that day. However, the birth of Louise Joy Brown was of huge significance for couples all over the world. She was the first ever baby to be born through in vitro fertilisation (IVF), a medical procedure by which eggs are fertilised by sperm in a lab and later implanted in the uterus. In short, couples for whom a family through natural birth had been an impossibility were now given hope.
