Vindana and parents share many happy birthdays
(wz) Vindana, the Reproductive Health Centre that has passed many milestones, including its 101st baby being born on Friday, has advanced steadily in what it has to offer since its inception in 1998.
In a cosy home many miles from Colombo, while a family prepares to celebrate the sixth birthday of a little girl on July 1 with a “small party”, in Colombo on Friday, a young mother experiences the joy of childbirth.
What is the link between the bubbly nearly-six girl and Friday’s newborn……both are inextricably linked to Vindana, which helps “mimic nature”. The six-year-old is Vindana’s very first baby and the newborn the 101st. Both of them and all the others in between have been born through the process called in-vitro fertilization or in lay terms known as “test tube” babies.
A fine record within six years and though Vindana has the atmosphere of a family gathering in its waiting room than that of a clinic and the walls are plastered with photographs of smiling babies, some alone and two together, this Reproductive Health Centre has passed many milestones, including many firsts in the country, since its inception in 1998.
“She’s a tall girl,” says Prof. Harsha Seneviratne, smilingly recalling a visit paid by the couple who are the proud parents of the first Vindana baby, along with their daughter. Harking back to the centre’s beginnings he says that although Sri Lanka was into in-vitro fertilization (IVF) technology with the expertise of foreign doctors, the technology was not being retained in the country.
“The need was to keep the technology within and when the time was right and our embryologist was confident that she could handle the process, we started it at Vindana,” he says. The pregnancy and birth on July 1, 2002 of the first such baby were managed by a totally Sri Lankan team. more…
From: »The Sunday Times« (Sri Lanka)