Patrick Steptoe (1913–1988; Figure 12) had been Consultant Obstetrician at Oldham General Hospital since 1951 (Edwards, 1996), where for several years he had been pioneering the development and use of the laparoscope in gynaecological surgery (Edwards, 1996; Steptoe, 1967a).

Subhash Mukhopadhyay (16 January 1931 – 19 June 1981) was an Indian scientist, physician from Hazaribagh, Bihar and Orissa Province, British India (now in Jharkhand, India), who created the world’s second and India’s first child using in-vitro fertilisation.

Kanupriya Agarwal

Robert Edwards is awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize for the development of human in vitro fertilization (IVF) therapy. His achievements have made it possible to treat infertility, a medical condition afflicting a large proportion of humanity including more than 10% of all couples worldwide.

Several years later (1976) a second IVF pregnancy, this time an ectopic pregnancy, was reported by British doctors. They later conceived the embryo which resulted in the world’s first live IVF birth, of baby Louise Brown, in England, 1978.

By 2016, some 6.5 million babies had been born using in-vitro fertilization (IVF). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), around 1.6 percent of babies born in the United States each year are conceived through assisted reproductive technology (ART).

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ordered the only country in the world that completely prohibits in vitro fertilization (IVF) to lift its ban.

The case of Costa Rica is emblematic. For 16 years, Costa Rica was the only country in the world that banned IVF after it had been successfully conducted from 1995 to 2000. It also has been the only country that banned IVF based on the argument that it protects the embryo.

What is sex selection with IVF? This is the process of a couple or individual choosing the genetic sex of the child, boy or girl, by testing the embryo(s) created through IVF before one is implanted in the uterus. Sex selection is only possible using IVF embryos.

Multiple births can develop through in vitro fertilization when more than one embryo is put back into the mother’s womb. Identical twins can develop even when only one embryo is put back into the womb. Click here to learn exactly how the IVF process works.

When people quote for gender selection itself, they are generally only referencing the lab biopsy fees and the genetic testing fees, but as mentioned, sex or gender selection can not be done without IVF. Similar to the cost of gender selection fees, the cost of IVF ranges widely and includes many components.

It is illegal in India to use any technology to select the gender of a foetus. But activists suspect that medical professionals have been using Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, or PGD as it is commonly known, to selectively implant male embryos.

“The IUI method for gender selection can only be done to have boys. You can’t take the sperm from the bottom of the test tube because the sperm there is not as active and the chances of getting pregnant from that are not very high. “The final method is via PGD (preimplantation genetic diagnosis).

Currently, the only guaranteed way to select the sex of your baby is through preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a test sometimes performed as part of in vitro fertilization (IVF) cycles.