Australia's first IVF baby is celebrating her 30th birthday today.

About 85,000 babies have been born in Australia using the same technology since Candice Reed's birth on June 23 1980.

Ms Reed now lives in New Zealand and is an advocate for children born through IVF.

While declining to do any interviews, in a prepared statement she says knowing she was the first Australian IVF baby has had a profound impact on her life.

"The best thing about being an IVF baby is knowing that I was loved and wanted well before I was even conceived," she said.

"On one hand I don't think knowing I was an IVF baby really did affect me at all. It's just like if you've got blonde hair or you wear glasses.

"But on the other hand, I think having had those conversations at home and knowing a little bit more about reproduction and sex, I was probably a little more informed than my peers in even primary school, high school."

Ms Reed is using her birthday to lobby the Federal Government to include learning about reproductive technology in the Australian school curriculum.

Peter Illingworth, president of the Fertility Society of Australia, says Ms Reed's birth was groundbreaking.

"At the time babies being born through this sort of technology was considered revolutionary and really quite odd and unusual and quite bizarre," he said.

"Quite reasonably many people had fears that we were entering into a brave new world of designer babies and synthetic babies and there was a lot of concern and fear."

The chief scientist involved in the breakthrough, the University of Melbourne's Alex Lopata, says there was a lot of attention on Ms Reed.

"There were lots of photographs of Candice when she was one, and the first year after her birth was a prolonged celebration," he said.

"The birth... attracted worldwide attention not only because of the media publicity but also because the procedures that we used were published in detail in medical journal Fertility and Sterility in 1980."

Dr Lopata says the birth also put Melbourne on the medical map.

"[It] acted like an IVF beacon that attracted infertility specialists to Melbourne," he said.

"All of the international specialists who visited us obtained information that enabled them to establish successful clinics. The first ones were in France, USA, Germany, Austria, England, Japan and Israel."

But Dr Lopata says the the triumph was tinged with tragedy, as fears over genetic abnormalities meant the team's second attempt at a baby was lost after an invasive test for abnormalities.

"Our second pregnancy was lost at 19 weeks following an amniocentesis and the second pregnancy followed the first by about six months," he said.

"That was terrible and we were terribly worried that there might be genetic abnormaility and that's why people were doing amniocentesis almost routinely on the first few IVF babies."

Dr Lopata says he is impressed with the evolution within the field over the past 30 years.

"The technology is really moving very fast and to the advantage of infertile couples, so it's delightful that this work has led to where we are now and things are still improving," he said.

Stigma decreased

Also marking the 30th anniversary of Australian IVF is journalist and IVF mother Theresa Miller.

Ms Miller, who wrote the book Making Babies about her experiences, says she and her husband tried for five years to conceive naturally before turning to IVF.

"We were incredibly lucky - we got pregnant on the first round, which is almost unheard of," she said.

"My little girl Zoe has just turned seven and then a few years later we had a home grown surprise, another little girl Sienna who's three."

Ms Miller says she is pleased 30 years on attitudes have change towards such procedures.

"I remember the headlines myself as a kid," she said.

"Test tube baby - what does that mean? Is she an alien? Is she long and skinny?

"People didn't understand what that meant and there's a young IVF girl in my book who was one of the first 50 and she said she was teased at school because it got out.

"Some [children] said, "oh, my parents said that's really wrong that you're a result of IVF and you're a fake" or "you're a robot"

"She's now an ambassador in fertility networks and wants to spread the word that she's a result of her parents really wanting a child and needing some medical help."

"I think we've got accept that just as we accept people need help if they've got diabetes or asthma or any other condition, that some people need help if they're infertile."