Santiago,Chile – A medical milestone was reached in Chile โขon January 25,1984,with the birth of Aliro Patricio Franco Garrido,the first child conceived through in vitro fertilizationโ (IVF) in Latin America. The groundbreaking birth occurredโ at the Aliro Patricio Franco garridoโ Military โHospital, โฃaโฃ facility within the Airโ Force Hospital (FACh).
Theโข success followed years of infertility struggles for his mother, Patricia Garrido Dumont.โ After exhaustive testing, she was invited to participate in anโ experimental IVF program at FACh in 1983, led โby Dr. Alberto Costoya and Dr. Umberto Pastore.
“At the beginningโ of 1984, on her thirdโข attempt, Patricia Garrido had her eggs aspirated โon May 21. Shortly thereafter we found out โthat she โฃwas pregnant and โwe were able to โขobserveโ a โฃgestational sac,” Dr. โCostoya recalled inโ an interview withโ BioBioChile. He described the era as “very โheroic times,” acknowledgingโค the challengesโ of performing the procedure with limited technology.
The achievement built upon the world’sโฃ first โฃsuccessful โIVF birth,Louise Brown,born inโ England onโข July โ25,1978,a result of the work by physiologist Robert Edwards,gynecologist Patrickโ Steptoe,and embryologist Jean Purdy.IVF involves hormonally stimulating โขegg production, extracting the eggs, and fertilizing them with sperm before transferring the resulting embryo to the uterus, as explained by Dr. Carlos Henrรญquez, director of Clรญnica Cram, to BioBioChile.
Since 1978, assisted reproductive technologies have seen exponential growth globally. Betweenโ 1978 and 2018,approximatelyโค 9 to 12 million babies were born worldwide through theseโ techniques,according to research published in Assistedโ reproduction in chile: a global lookโ at theโฃ challenge ofโข offeringโ timely access.
In โคChile, over 5,000 IVF cycles were performed in 2021, accordingโฃ to data โfrom the Chilean Society of โReproductiveโข Medicine (Socmer), as reported by The Third. Louise Brown, now 46, is a mother of two and โฃtravels โthe world advocating forโค assisted reproduction, despite initially being labeled a “test tubeโ baby”-a term now considered inaccurate.