EVEN years after it opened its Human Assisted Reproduction Unit on October 26th, 1989, the Rotunda Hospital recently celebrated the birth of its 551st miracle baby. Among the 310 boys and 241 girls born were 249 single babies, 98 sets of twins, 30 sets of triplets and four sets of quads. In total, 1,201 infertile couples have been through the programme with a mean age of 34 years for mothers and 39 years for fathers.
When the first "miracle babies" were born as a result of in vitro fertilisation in the 1980s, the world was in awe at this new technology. IVF came to Ireland in 1989 after much controversy and since then the Rotunda's Human Assisted Reproduction Unit has proved itself to be one of the best such programmes in the world. Not only is its pregnancy rate higher than average, but its end result live birth figures are significantly better than those quoted for the rest of the world to date.
