ABSTRACT
On July 25, 1978, an uneventful delivery of baby girl Brown marked the birth of a new reproductive technology that has revolutionized the therapy of the infertile couple and caught the interest and imagination of the ethicists, the press, and the general public. Rather than the result of a precisely planned scientific experiment, this birth was the cumulation of a sound knowledge of reproductive science, a human malady in need of a therapy, and 10 years of trial and error. Less than a decade later, a vast, clinically oriented science has grown around in vitro technologies and human reproduction. Although initially used as a method to bypass blocked fallopian tubes, in vitro technologies have become the final common path for the treatment of infertility. The combined procedure of stimulation of follicle growth and maturation, follicle puncture and oocyte capture, insemination in vitro, and placement of the conceptus directly into the uterine cavity enables a bypass of an array of both defined and undefined blocks to fertility. As such, in vitro techniques are now being used for treatment of endometriosis, endocrinopathy, cervical factor, male factor, immunologic, and unexplained infertility, when less invasive techniques have failed.
