Elizabeth Carr, the first U.S. test-tube baby, was born on this date in 1981. At the time, more than 100 women had become pregnant using the test-tube or in-vitro technique, five of them in America. In this procedure, an egg cell harvested from Carr's mother was combined with sperm from Carr's father in a laboratory dish. The embryo that came from this union was then inserted into Mrs. Carr's uterus, and the baby was delivered vaginally. This procedure is used when the fallopian tubes can't deliver to the uterus the egg cell that one ovary usually releases each month upon ovulation. Usually, sperm and egg combine in the fallopian tube on the way to the uterus. Researchers believe that as many as 500,000 U.S. women are sterile as a result of this problem.

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