The first successful birth of a child after IVF treatment, Louise Brown, occurred in 1978. Louise Brown was born as a result of natural cycle IVF where no stimulation was made. The procedure took place at Dr Kershaws Cottage Hospital (now Dr Kershaws Hospice) in Royton, Oldham, England. Robert G. Edwards, the physiologist who co-developed the treatment, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2010. His co-workers, Patrick Steptoe and Jean Purdy, were not eligible for consideration as the Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously.
The second successful birth of a test tube baby occurred in India just 67 days after Louise Brown was born. The girl, named Durga, was conceived in vitro using a method developed independently by Subhash Mukhopadhyay, a physician and researcher from Hazaribag. Mukhopadhyay had been performing experiments on his own with primitive instruments and a household refrigerator. However, state authorities prevented him from presenting his work at scientific conferences, and it was many years before Mukhopadhyay's contribution was acknowledged in works dealing with the subject.
Adriana Iliescu held the record as the oldest woman to give birth using IVF and a donor egg, when she gave birth in 2004 at the age of 66, a record passed in 2006. After the IVF treatment some couples are able to get pregnant without any fertility treatments. In 2018 it was estimated that eight million children had been born worldwide using IVF and other assisted reproduction techniques.