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in vitro fertilization
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In vitro fertilization
Portrait of a white woman beside a close-up of an IVF embryo with a micropipette and an arrow; she holds a LIFE magazine cover titled 'Test-Tube Baby Boom'.
The first American born via in vitro fertilization Robert Edwards and Louise Brown
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in vitro fertilization (IVF) summary
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In vitro fertilization
In vitro fertilization An embryologist uses a microscope to view a human embryo in preparation for in vitro fertilization (IVF).

in vitro fertilization

medical technology
Also known as: IVF, test-tube conception
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in vitro fertilization (IVF), medical procedure in which mature egg cells are removed from a woman, fertilized with male sperm outside the body, and inserted into the uterus of the same or another woman for gestation. Although IVF with reimplantation of fertilized eggs (ova) has long been widely used in animal breeding, the first successful birth of a human child from IVF, carried out by British gynecologist Patrick Steptoe and British medical researcher Robert Edwards,...

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