Frederick Wirth | 'Test-tube baby' doctor, 68
Frederick Wirth, 68, the physician to America's first "test-tube baby," died Monday of pancreatic cancer in Carson City, Nev.
Frederick Wirth, 68, the physician to America's first "test-tube baby," died Monday of pancreatic cancer in Carson City, Nev.
Dr. Wirth was the neonatologist who cared for Elizabeth Jordan Carr after her birth on Dec. 28, 1981.
Carr was born three years after Louise Brown, the world's first baby conceived via in-vitro fertilization, was born in England. More than a million babies since then have been conceived through in-vitro fertilization.
Carr, now 27 and a news content producer for the Boston Globe's Web site, Boston.com, said that Dr. Wirth determined how the public perceived the nation's first in-vitro baby.
Dr. Wirth pronounced her healthy and normal at the first news conference, which the nation watched eagerly at a time when such medical technology was new and scary.
Dr. Wirth reunited with Carr in 2003 in Boston, where the two discussed a letter he wrote to her the day she was born.
Dr. Wirth cared for about 10,000 babies over his career and worked at Reading Hospital and Medical Center in Pennsylvania about 10 days a month up until June.
- AP