In Vitro Fertilisation

Question 1 What type of couples are helped to have babies by in vitro fertilisation technique?

Question 2 Describe the in vitro fertilisation technique of reproduction in humans?

Question 3 What are test tube babies?

In Vitro Fertilisation

In healthy women fertilisation of egg by sperm take place in the oviduct or fallopian tube. The oviduct of some women are blocked due to some reason. Such women cannot produce babies in the normal way because the eggs released by their ovary cannot meet the sperm and get fertilised in the oviduct.

Such women who cannot produce babies are called sterile. Even the sterile women can have women by using the in-vitro fertilisation technique.

The fertilisation of an egg with sperm is carried out in a glass dish or glass tube rather than in the body of a woman. This is commonly known as test-tube baby technique or IVF.

(1) The eggs are removed from the ovary of woman by laproscopy. A small cut is made in the side of woman’s abdomen and an optical fibre tube is inserted into her body so that the doctor can see the ovary and take out the tiny eggs.

(2) The woman’s husband provides the sperm(in the form of semen)

(3)The sperms are mixed with eggs in a glass dish to carry out fertilisation. The fertilised egg develops into embryo.

(4) After about a week ,one or more embryos are placed in the woman’s uterus. If the embryo gets implanted in the uterus successfully, then normal pregnancy occurs and baby is born after about nine months.

In vitro fertilisation technique was used successfully for reproduction in humans in 1978.

The success rate of this technique is only 30-40 percent.

The babies born through in vitro fertilisation technique are called test tube babies because the fertilisation take place in a glass dish or glass test tube.