A baby conceived through in vitro fertilisation in which the mother’s ova are removed from the ovaries, fertilised with a man’s spermatozoa in a laboratory, and returned to the mother’s uterus to continue developing in the usual way.
A baby born to a woman as a result of fertilization of one of her ova by her husband’s sperm outside her body. This technique, pioneered in Britain, resulted in the birth of a live baby girl in July 1978. It is useful when the woman has blocked fallopian tubes or some similar defect in the reproductive system. The mother-to-be is given a short course of hormones, causing several ova to mature at the same time. Several ova are removed using a laparoscope. The ova are mixed with sperm in a culture medium and incubated until the blastocyst forms. The blastocyst is then implanted in the mother’s womb and the pregnancy continues normally thereafter.
A baby born to a mother whose ovum was removed, fertilized outside her body, and then implanted in her uterus. The term is colloquial.
The informal expression used for an infant born after in vitro fertilization, a process where an egg (ovum) is retrieved from a woman’s ovary, fertilized externally, and subsequently introduced into the uterus.