Slovenia marks 40 years since first IVF pregnancy

The first successful in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) in Slovenia was performed 40 years ago and today about a thousand babies born every year in the country are conceived outside the body. Slovenia is considered to be a global leader in the field.

In March 1983 gynaecologist Tomaž Tomaževič and microbiologist Helena Hren Vencelj visited Erlangen, Germany, to learn how to perform IVF. Six months later the first woman was made pregnant using the same method in Ljubljana.

Helena Ban Frangež, the head of the reproduction ward at the Division of Gynaecology and Obstetrics at the UKC...