In-vitro fertilization is one of the most common infertility treatments, but less than 50 years ago, researchers and the women among them were still working to create and develop the procedure that now accounts for thousands of births in the U.S. each year.
IVF is a medical procedure in which an egg is fertilized by sperm in a lab or elsewhere outside of the body, and the fertilized eggs, or embryos, are then placed into the body, according to the Mayo Clinic.
In February 2024, IVF was at the center of much discussion when the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos created through IVF were considered children under state law. This halted IVF procedures around the state until a law was passed to protect IVF providers in March. It shined a light on the legacy of this procedure and the women involved in its creation who have given families a pathway to having children when there was none.
Many women scientists played a role in the development of IVF, from Miriam Menkin in the 30s to Georgeanna Seegar Jones in the late 70s and 80s, Margaret Marsh, a historian of reproductive medicine and reproductive sexuality at Rutgers University, and Dr. Wanda Ronner, a professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Pennsylvania, tell TODAY.com.
“They were all pioneers in in this area, along with the people they worked with,” Marsh says. As research partners to the men developing IVF at the time, the women involved in the formation of IVF were instrumental to the treatment so many people rely on today. “These men could not have been successful without these women,” Ronner notes.
Jones’ work, for example, led to the birth of the first baby born in the U.S. from IVF, Elizabeth Carr. Carr tells TODAY.com she…
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