Valley’s First in Vitro Baby Delivered--He’s ‘Perfect’
When Julie Brewer heard the historic news seven years ago that an Englishwoman had given birth to a child conceived in a glass dish, she said, “I thought it was very interesting, but I never thought I would be doing the same thing myself.”
But at 8:05 a.m. Monday, Brewer gave birth to a seven-pound son, the first “test-tube” baby born in the San Fernando Valley, according to Northridge Hospital Medical Center.
Brewer and her husband, Bob, both 35, of Long Beach, said they had virtually given up hope of having children of their own because blockages of her Fallopian tubes prevented her from becoming pregnant. The Brewers were looking for a child to adopt when they heard about the in vitro (Latin for “in glass”) fertilization program at the hospital, one of at least four such programs in the Los Angeles area.
The advance of in vitro research, and the spread of in vitro programs, has been so swift that, only a few years after the birth of Louise Brown amazed the world in 1978, in vitro fertilization is becoming increasingly available to women with fertility problems in many major cities in many nations.
Technique Used
At the proper time in her menstrual cycle, pinhead-sized ova, or eggs, are removed from a woman through a quarter-inch abdominal incision. The ova are kept alive in a culture, fertilized with sperm and returned to the woman’s body as embryos of six to eight cells, in hope they will “take”--attach themselves to the lining of the uterus and grow into a child.
Despite the nickname “test tube,” the fertilization occurs in a shallow petri dish, not a test tube.
There are somewhere between 700 and 1,000 in vitro children in the world--scientists have lost track of the precise number--and from 35 to 40 locally conceived children in the Los Angeles area, said Dr. Sheldon Schein, co-director of the Northridge hospital program.
Schein and his partners, Dr. Paul Greenberg and biologist Ian Pike, said there is no way to trace in vitro children who might have been conceived in clinics elsewhere, such as the pioneering centers in England and Australia, by American women who returned home to give birth.
But at a meeting in Helsinki last year, researchers agreed to try to set up a registry of all in vitro children in the world to follow their development. There is now no evidence that they are different from other children, they said.
Robert Anthony Brewer, the first known Valley entry on the list, entered the world by Caesarean section, crying loudly. A videotape of his birth was shown to reporters a few hours later.
The infant was delivered by Caesarean section partly because Mrs. Brewer is a diabetic, which could have complicated a normal delivery, and because she has a small pelvis, Greenberg said. Most in vitro children are born normally.
The baby was examined by a specialist in newborn infants “and everything seems to be perfect,” Schein said.
In vitro children actually appear to have far fewer physical abnormalities than other infants, Schein said, “although we have to reserve judgment pending a worldwide study.”
From 2% to 10% of normally conceived infants are born with birth defects, he said. But he has heard of only “a handful of such cases among in vitro children, less than 10 in the whole world,” he said, contrasted with the 14 to 100 cases that would be normal.
He theorized that the rigors of the transplant process itself may eliminate weaker embryos more likely to grow into defective fetuses. “Only the healthiest embryos will take” when they are returned to the woman’s body, he said.
Husband Felt ‘Tremendous’
Bob Brewer, a Los Angeles County fireman stationed in Carson, took part in the delivery and carried the newborn infant to show to his wife, who remained conscious during the delivery. “I felt tremendous, very gratified, very thankful,” Brewer said.
Schein and Greenberg, who performed the Caesarean, said they have a special feeling delivering a child they helped conceive. “You have a feeling of pride and joy that you were able to help do this,” Greenberg said.
The last time he saw little Robert was as a collection of cells under a microscope. “It’s spooky to work with these things at first,” Schein said. “They look like four or six tiny marbles in a little plastic sac, and you can see right through them.”
Mrs. Brewer, a computer sales representative for the Hewlett-Packard Co., said in an interview before the delivery that she had tried for several years to become pregnant and had been to many doctors and fertility clinics, but that she could not conceive because adhesions blocked her Fallopian tubes.
“I had resigned myself to not being able to get pregnant,” she said, until her physician recommended the in vitro program. She was skeptical that anything would work, she said, but decided to make one more attempt before trying to adopt a child.
“This was our last shot,” she said.
Had a 10% Chance
She produced only one good fertilized ovum in her first cycle, which gave her only a 10% chance of becoming pregnant. Doctors like to have as many as three or four ova to implant, to improve the chances at least one will survive. Occasionally all survive, producing triplets or quadruplets.
At one point it appeared Mrs. Brewer’s implant did not “take,” but another test several days later showed she was pregnant.
“All my friends and relatives think it’s just miraculous that doctors can do this sort of thing,” she said.
Since it began in August, 1983, the Northridge Hospital program has implanted embryos in 30 women and produced eight pregnancies, including one pair of twins and one set of triplets expected to be born three or four months from now, Schein said.
Other Programs
There are similar programs at Good Samaritan Hospital, UCLA Medical Center, Century City Hospital and Beverly Hills Medical Center, said Dr. Bill Yee of USC medical school, an associate of Dr. Richard Marrs of USC, a leading researcher in the field.
USC operates the program at Good Samaritan, which began in 1981, the first program in California and only the second in the United States. It has produced about 30 infants, Yee said.
The common charge for the service in this area is about $5,000 per menstrual cycle, the physicians said. Some women need treatments over three or four cycles to become pregnant, Schein said, and most insurance companies do not pay for infertility treatments, “so the price is a limiting factor.”
Increasing Demand
There is an increasing demand for the service worldwide, Yee, Schein and Greenberg said.
Schein said that the steadily increasing incidence of infertility among both men and women--a trend that scientists have not yet firmly explained--”and the lack of babies available for adoption because of the increase in abortions” are pushing the demand.
“This was born out of necessity as a service for people who want children,” Schein said.
The future demand may include the Brewers.
They are going to try to have another child the old-fashionned way, Bob Brewer said. But, if that does not work, “there’s no question we will do this again.”
How many children does he want?
“A football team.”
