The world’s first IVF baby, Louise Brown, shares with us her adventures as an ambassador for the fertility industry and talks about meeting another first in Dublin
“One of the best things about being the first IVF baby to be born is that I get to meet a lot of young babies born through IVF.
The most recent was a lovely little chap called Blayne, who was the first baby to be born as a result of the work of Thérapie Fertility in Dublin, Ireland.
This clinic chose my birthday in 2021 to open for the first time. So, one year on I visited Dublin to meet Blayne and his parents and the clinic’s expert, Dr John Kennedy. It was interesting to hear about how fertility treatment is progressing in Ireland – a country I had sadly not been to since I was taken there by my parents when I was under two as part of our first world tour.
Since opening, Thérapie Fertility has given consultations to 4,000 patients, this includes over 700 women who have attended without a partner looking to investigate and potentially invest in planning for the future. The clinic has also built its team of fertility experts to 33 full time staff led by Dr Kennedy and they have plans to expand with four further satellite clinics nationwide.
Our conversations were around affordability and I was glad to hear that the clinic is trying to make fertility treatment accessible to everyone, no matter what their financial situation
My mum and dad were not rich and Robert Edwards, who pioneered IVF, always said he wanted it to be affordable for everyone who needed help.
Before Thérapie Fertility opened in Dublin it was reported that 50% of Irish people travelled abroad to try to get more affordable treatment. On my travels around the world I have often met Irish couples in clinic waiting rooms in far flung parts of Europe.
Price, and the religious and cultural beliefs of close relatives against treatment, are the two reasons I have heard that they have travelled so far.
Baby Blayne was just the first precious result of the work in Dublin and before you read this other babies will have been born as a result of the great team of embryologists I met there. I’m looking forward to catching up with news of fertility treatment and innovation in more countries now we are all able to travel again following the Covid restrictions”.
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