Uterus transplant between sisters successful!
The first British uterus transplant went successful in which a woman donated her womb to her younger sister to help her try to become a mother too. The donor, 40, who does not wish to be identified, has two children of her own and was willing to give her womb to her sister, so that she too could have children.
The transplant involved a nine-hour operation on the unnamed 34-year-old recipient, who is a married beneficiary from England, reported Express UK.
Why do people opt for womb transplants?
About 50 babies have been born worldwide as a result of womb transplants. These give women without a functioning uterus a chance to bear children.
Women with Uterine Factor Infertility (UFI), a previously irreversible form of female infertility, cannot carry a pregnancy. Uterus transplantation provides a promising potential treatment for women with UFI.
Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome
In this case, the recipient was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome, which is a rare congenital reproductive disorder that affects one in 5,000 women. Sufferers of this syndrome have an underdeveloped vagina and/or missing womb.
The first sign of this condition is when a teenage girl does not have periods. However, ovaries are intact and function to produce eggs and female hormones. So fertility treatments can help make conceiving possible.
Hope for pregnancy
The £25,000 successful transplant is expected to last up to five years before the womb is removed, reported Express UK.
“Medics now face an anxious wait to see if the embryo will take. If it does, nine months later the recipient will have a baby by caesarean. Six months on from that she will have a choice of undergoing a hysterectomy or trying for another baby.”
Prof Smith, of charity Womb Transplant UK which funded the op, and a consultant gynecological surgeon at Imperial College London, said the transplanted womb is “functioning exactly as it should” and plans for IVF are on schedule. The recipient will need to take immunosuppressant drugs throughout any pregnancy to prevent her body rejecting the donor organ.
Doctors are proud and happy
Prof Smith shared, “The operation surgically has been incredibly successful. Failure was not an option. The donor and the recipient are two absolutely lovely women. We couldn’t have a better result. People say we must feel proud. Actually, we feel relieved. I feel emotional about it all. The first consultation with the recipient post-op, we were all almost in tears.”
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More about the operation
The operation to remove the older sister’s womb took eight hours and 12 minutes. Surgeons left her ovaries behind so she didn’t face an early menopause.
An hour before the womb was extracted, surgeons started operating on the younger sister in a procedure that took nine hours and 20 minutes. She suffered a higher-than-expected blood loss of two liters. However, after just 10 days of the operation, she was well enough to leave the hospital and has continued to make a good recovery. She is also having regular periods, which shows the womb is working well. The donor sister was also discharged after five days and has made a good recovery.