Published : 2025-03-10

On March 10, 1988, China's first test-tube baby was born.

Zheng Guizhen (鄭桂珍), hailing from Yanguan Town, Li County, Longnan City, Gansu Province, suffered from fallopian tube disease and was unable to conceive.

After learning that Professor Zhang Lizhu (張麗珠) of the Third Hospital of Peking University was conducting research on "test-tube babies," she decided to take a chance.

Although medical conditions at that time were very underdeveloped, such as the need to sharpen and reuse egg retrieval needles, using thermos cups to store follicular fluid, and preparing culture medium manually, the team successfully performed "open abdominal egg retrieval" for Zheng Guizhen and smoothly completed in vitro fertilisation and returned the fertilised egg to the uterus.

After the child was born, Zheng Guizhen named her "Mengzhu" (萌珠), deriving "Meng" from the word for germinate, and "Zhu" to thank Professor Zhang Lizhu.

When Zheng Mengzhu (鄭萌珠) was born, she weighed 7.8 jin (about 8.6 pounds) and was 52 centimetres long.

All her health check-ups were up to standard, and she was very healthy.

As the first case, Zheng Mengzhu continuously received follow-up research from medical researchers during her growth, showing that her language ability, IQ, and physical development all performed no differently from ordinary people.