A Mother has given birth to a screaming healthy baby via c-section, after receiving a womb from a mother-of-two nurse who lives nearby
The first birth as a result of a womb transplant in the United States has taken place in Texas, marking a huge milestone for American medicine.
A woman who had been born without a uterus gave birth to the baby at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas about a year after receiving a womb from a 36-year-old mother-of-two nurse, who lives nearby the hospital.
Hospital spokesman Craig Civale confirmed that the birth had taken place, but said no other details are available.
Citing her privacy, the hospital did not identify the woman.
The breakthrough comes after many years of attempts by various hospitals to perfect the art of womb transplants, which has only been a success in Sweden.
The Cleveland Clinic in Ohio made headlines in 2016 after transplanting a deceased donor’s womb into a patient, however, it had to be removed days later due to a yeast infection.
In October 2016, Baylor quietly announced that it had performed four uterus transplants using living donors – the same approach as the Swedish team. Three had to be removed due to poor blood flow, but one was a success.
Baylor has had a study underway for a number of years to enroll up to 10 women for uterus transplants.
In October 2016, the hospital said that four women had received transplants but that three of the wombs had to be removed because of poor blood flow.
The hospital would give no further information on how many transplants have been performed since then.
Time magazine, which first reported the US baby’s birth, says that eight have been done in all, and that another woman is currently pregnant as a result.
The first four cases involved what you call ‘altruistic’ donors — unrelated and unknown to the recipients. The ones done in Sweden were all from live donors, mostly from the recipients’ mother or a sister.
While very little is known about the new mother, Time spoke to her donor Taylor Siler, 36, who is a registered nurse and mother-of-two in Dallas.
‘I have family members who struggled to have babies, and it’s not fair,’ Siler told the newspaper. ‘I just think that if we can give more people that option, that’s an awesome thing.’
A doctor in Sweden, Mats Brannstrom, is the first Doctor in the world to deliver a baby as a result of a uterus transplant. As of last year, he had delivered 5 babies from women with donated wombs.
At least 16 uterus transplants have taken place worldwide, including one in Cleveland from a deceased donor that had to be removed because of complications.
Last month, Penn Medicine in Philadelphia announced that it would also start offering womb transplants.
Womb donors may be dead or alive, and the Baylor study aims to use some of both.
Doctors are of the hope that womb transplants will enable as many as several thousand women born without a uterus to bear children.
To be eligible for the Baylor study, women have to be between 20 to 35 years old and have healthy, normal ovaries.
They will first have in vitro fertilization to retrieve and fertilize their eggs and produce embryos that can be frozen until they are ready to attempt pregnancy.
After the uterus transplant, the embryos may be thawed and implanted, at least a year after the transplant to make sure the womb is working well.
A baby resulting from a uterine transplant would need to be delivered by cesarean section.
The wombs are not intended to be permanent.
Having one means that a woman must take powerful drugs to prevent organ rejection, and the drugs pose long-term health risks, so the uterus would be removed after one or two successful pregnancies.
The American Society for Reproductive Medicine issued a statement calling the Dallas birth ‘another important milestone in the history of reproductive medicine.’
For women born without a functioning uterus, ‘transplantation represents the only way they can carry a pregnancy,’ the statement said.
The group is convening experts to develop guidelines for programs which want to offer this service.