In 1978, Louise Joy Brown was born in the UK. The first child conceived by IVF. Since then, more than 5 million people have been born this way. This is as many as the population of Warsaw, Krakow, Łódź, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Radom combined.

Robert Edwards and Patrick Steptoe had already, some years earlier, successfully learned how to take egg cells and fertilise them outside the woman's body. The problem was to place them back into the uterus so that the whole process would result in pregnancy. The key turned out to be adequate hormonal stimulation, which was as non-invasive as possible. In the end, it worked.

Louise's birth was a huge event. Newspapers offered thousands of pounds for information from the life of the Brown family. On the day of the birth, a false bomb alert was sounded at the hospital. The threatening phone call was most likely made by a journalist wanting to take a picture of mum Louise as she was leaving the hospital during the evacuation.

However, all this confusion did not discourage Mr and Mrs Brown. A few years later, also thanks to the in vitro method, Natalie was born. Both sisters now have children of their own, conceived using 100 per cent natural methods.

And what did the beginnings of IVF look like in our country? The first successful procedure was performed in 1986. The family preferred to remain anonymous for a long time. Magda only decided to go public at the age of 25. The reason was simple: she very much wanted to meet the professors thanks to whom she was born.

It is estimated that around 5 000 children conceived by IVF are born in Poland each year. This represents as much as 1.5 per cent of all births.