In a scene once unimaginable, 1,000 test tube children met on Saturday to celebrate the 25th birthday of the world's first IVF baby and the anniversary of the revolutionary fertility treatment.

Since Louise Brown was born on July 25, 1978, more than a million babies worldwide have been conceived through in-vitro fertilization (IVF).

One thousand balloons were released into the sky over the Bourn Hall Clinic in rural eastern England as IVF children and their parents sang Happy Birthday,chatted or danced on the sprawling lawns. Professor Bob Edwards, who pioneered the technique, described the day as a celebration of success.

"We had concepts we thought would work and they did," he told a press conference, flanked by Brown and Alastair MacDonald, the first male IVF baby.

"To be in the company of these two people is quite fantastic," added Edwards, 77, beaming.

Brown, who lives in Bristol in southwestern England and is engaged to be married, said it was good to see old friends again -- referring to other IVF children present and the doctors she has known all her life.

But despite the celebrations to mark her birth, which has been described as one of the great medical and scientific stories of the 20th century, she said she didn't feel special.

"I just get on with my life normally," she said.

But when asked if she would consider IVF if it was necessary for her to have children she responded with an emphatic, "Yes."

The celebrations at the Bourn Hall Clinic, where Edwards and his partner Patrick Steptoe perfected the technique, were a far cry from the early days of IVF.

Removing eggs from women and fertilizing them with sperm in test tubes was considered a radical procedure in the 1970s. Edwards and Steptoe, who died in 1988, were criticized for what they were trying to achieve and were accused of playing God.

Now IVF and other techniques can help about 75 percent of the estimated one in six couples who have a fertility problem to become parents.

Since Brown's birth a technique for male infertility called intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and embryo screening to select the best embryos have pushed success rates to about 25 percent or more in many clinics.

ICSI involves inserting a single sperm into an egg.

Edwards believes the next 25 years will bring more advanced in fertility treatments. One of the biggest challenges, he said, is learning more about why embryos do not implant in the womb.

He would also like to see improvements in diagnosing genetic diseases and the development of stem cells, master cells in the body that can develop into any cell type, to treat diseases and to help infertile couples.

"This will be a major miracle," he added.

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