A 36-year-old Swede who was born without a womb but with intact ovaries due to a genetic condition called Rokitansky syndrome, has become the world's first woman to give birth after receiving a womb transplant. The healthy baby boy was born last month at the University of Gothenburg's hospital and weighed 1.775 kilos (3.9 pounds).
The baby was born by Caesarean section at 31 weeks after the mother developed pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy condition that causes high blood pressure. Both mother and infant are said to be doing well now.
Doctors disclosed news of the birth yesterday, describing the event as a breakthrough for women whose cause of infertility is that they do not have a womb. Read more after the cut...
The absence of a uterus as a result of heredity or surgical removal for medical reasons, has long been regarded as the last major barrier of female infertility.
"Absolute uterine factor infertility is the only major type of female infertility that is still viewed as untreatable," they said in a paper published by the British journal.
Mats Brannstrom and his team performing a
womb transplant on a woman earlier this year. Another six women given new wombs
are also said to be pregnant
The team behind the womb transplants who are,
from left – surgeons Andreas G Tzakis, Pernilla Dahm-Kähler, Mats Brannstrom,
Michael Olausson and Liza Johannesson
Surgeon Liza Johannesson said in a video supplied by her university;
"It was breathtaking. I think all of us felt that. It was like having your own child, actually, it was the same feeling. No one could really believe it."
The replacement organ came from a 61-year-old woman, a close family friend who had been through menopause seven years earlier. The organ was transplanted in a 10-hour operation last year.
The recipient underwent in-vitro fertilisation, in which eggs were harvested from her ovaries and fertilised using sperm from her partner, and then cryogenically preserved.
A year after the transplant, a single early-stage embryo was inserted into the transplanted womb. A pregnancy test three weeks later was positive.
The womb encountered a brief episode of rejection, but this was successfully tackled by increasing a dose of corticosteroid drugs to suppress the immune system.