The first child to be conceived using in vitro fertilisation, referred to at the time as a 'test-tube baby’, was born in 1978. Her name is Louise Brown and today she is married with children. Doctors Steptoe and Edwards made this great event possible and it led to the full development of assisted reproduction. Since then, hundreds of thousands of children have been born and the figure increases every year.

According to fertility indexes, it is estimated that approximately 17% of couples at reproductive age have difficulties having children. The significant fall in semen quality over the last 30 years, the causes of which are attributed, among others, to the increased use of chemical substances (pesticides, herbicides, etc.), the lateness with which women decide to have children and the stress that characterises our current lifestyles are among the main causes for the fall in fertility.

Unlike a man, a woman's age is a very important factor when she is trying to get pregnant. The reason is simple: in the case of a woman, when she is born, she has already formed the ova that will accompany her throughout her life so that when she reaches puberty and her menstrual cycles begin, the ova are lost and when they run out, the woman's menstruation ceases and she enters the period of menopause.

In the case of the man, the spermatozoons are continuously produced from spermatogenic mother cells. In other words, a woman of 30 has ova that are 30 years old, but a man of 30 has spermatozoons that have just been created and the same is true if he is 40 years old. That is why, after the age of 35, a woman's fertility decreases as her age advances. A man's fertility remains almost unchanged throughout his life.

"Maternity after the age of 50". This is a title we have seen recently in the press. Maternity after a certain age is possible thanks to assisted reproduction.

Obviously, it is highly probable that a woman will have the menopause after the age of 50 and, therefore, it will be 'impossible' for her to get pregnant. However, this is not necessarily so. What is impossible is for her to get pregnant naturally with her own ova, especially if she has the menopause, which is characterised by a total absence of ova. But if we use ova from a young woman, she can get pregnant. And this would explain the title in the press.