A Sussex fertility clinic is inviting children conceived via IVF to return to the laboratory where they were created as part of a revolutionary educational programme
The Agora Clinic’s clinical director, Dr Carole Gilling-Smith said she believes it is the first IVF Educational programme launched in the country.
Based in Brighton, children are invited into the clinic to meet with doctors and scientists who helped to conceive them.
They also get to visit the laboratory to witness the process of IVF.
Alby Johnson-Hetherington, from Shoreham-by-Sea, was one of the first children to be invited back.
Speaking to ITV News Meridian, during the tour, Alby said: “It’s just incredible to see first-hand how it’s all made. I was in awe; it was quite shocking to see… that’s an actual life starting to grow.”
Alby’s mother underwent seven cycles of IVF and chronicled the journey in a family scrapbook that the pair regularly look through.
Alby was conceived in 2009 and his mother, Amanda, said she would never forget the snowy February day the embryo transfer took place.
Amanda added: “For Alby now to come and see where his beginnings were, I just think it’s really important and it’s really important to be open because why should it be a secret?”
The centre is the largest provider of NHS-funded fertility care in Sussex, with more than 4,000 babies born since it opened 16 years ago, and is a huge advocate for helping the LGBTQ+ community to become parents.
Dr Carole Gilling-Smith said: “I think this is something that we need to be doing as clinicians, we need to be talking about IVF to the children very much in the same way that we talk about how natural conception happens.”
All the children attending are given a certificate for their visit and a personalised video of how IVF works.
Learn more about the IVF process:
