Nigeria’s first baby born through in vitro fertilisation 17 years ago, Hannatu Kupchi, has been admitted to a Hungarian university to study medicine.
The Punch reports that the medical doctor who supervised the first IVF experiment in Nigeria, Dr. Ibrahim Wada, said that Hannatu’s birth on February 11, 1998, at Nisa Premier Hospital in Abuja, started a revolution in the practice of medicine in Nigeria.
Talking in Abuja on Sunday, August 30, during a brief reception and presentation of an award to Hannatu, he said: “When I was out of this country, I knew there were people who wanted babies. I made the decision to come back to Nigeria to help people. It happened on February 11, 1998 when this historic event occurred in this hospital.”
Kupchi replied with the promise to be exceptional and become a doctor in order to help families who are unable to give birth through normal means. She further said by her birth, various misconceptions about IVF were broken and that many more children have been welcomed into the world through the test tube process. She said:
“I barely made it beyond the cut off mark. God helped me. I am going to try my best and make everyone proud. I am studying medicine because I want to be a doctor. I want to study it because I want God to use me to help families who suffer what my parents went through.”
In his remarks, Hannatu’s father, Hosea Kupchi, said, “We had 13 years of marriage without a child and we went through the orthodox method without any success. But along the line, my sister-in-law told me that there was one Dr. Wada that had been helping couples. That is how we came.”
Annegret Raunigk from Berlin gave birth to a girl and three boys by C-section, but all of them had to stay in hospital for several weeks as they were born prematurely and severely underweight. But now as Neeta, Bence, Fjonn and Dries weigh 2kg 579g, 2kg 680g, 2kg 636g and 2kg 806g respectively, they are ready to come home to meet their 13 brothers and sisters.
