AFP

London, Jul 23: The birth of Louise Brown, the world's first IVF baby, hit headlines around the globe three decades ago - but the married mother-of-one wants to keep her 30th birthday on Friday low-key by contrast.

Brown - who lives in Bristol, south-west England, with husband Wesley Mullinder and 18-month-old son Cameron, working as a shipping company administrator - remains reluctantly in the public eye despite her modest lifestyle.

Although her birth opened the door for millions of infertile couples worldwide to give birth to IVF (in vitro fertilization) or test tube babies, Brown has no big plans to celebrate the landmark date.

''I'm not really thinking of it as my 30th,'' she said. ''I'm just carrying on as if this is a normal birthday.

''I might go out with my friends or I might have a meal with the family. I'm planning on having a quiet one.''

Louise Joy Brown was born on July 25, 1978 at Oldham and District General Hospital in northwest England by Caesarean section, weighing 2.61 kg.

Her parents, Lesley and John, had been trying to have children for nine years but could not because Lesley Brown's fallopian tubes were blocked.

The couple's breakthrough came when they heard about research being carried out by Cambridge University physiologist Robert Edwards and gynaecologist Patrick Steptoe and signed up with them for fertility treatment.

Researchers created a fertilized embryo from the couple's egg and sperm in a laboratory and then implanted in Lesley Brown's womb.

The baby it created was Louise, who was told about her unusual conception by her parents just before she started school.