World First: Baby Born To A Mom With Uterus Transplant From A Deceased Donor

There are many women who have a difficult time getting pregnant and some who have a difficult time staying pregnant when they are able to conceive a child. It can be heartbreaking and in many cases, the mother may feel as if all hope is lost. As you are about to see, however, hope is not lost it is now something that many mothers have.

There were 10 attempts to transplant a uterus from a dead person into a live transplant recipient in recent years but they failed. Now, a woman who had a uterus transplanted from a deceased donor was able to successfully deliver a child and a year later, the medical field is absolutely thrilled with what happened.

The study was published in The Lancet and it involved scientists and doctors at the Hospital das Clínicas at the University of São Paulo School of medicine in Brazil. The donated uterus came from a 45-year-old woman who had a stroke and the recipient was a 32-year-old woman. The recipient had been diagnosed with a rare disorder known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome it causes the uterus to either be completely absent or underdeveloped.

The transplant surgery took place in 2016 and it involved connecting the organ with arteries and veins, ligaments and attaching it to the vaginal canal. It took 10 hours for the surgery to take place. After five months had passed, the woman had her first menstrual cycle.

In order for the newly transplanted uterus not to be rejected, the recipient had to take immunosuppressive medication. Doctors were able to perform IVF on the woman seven months after the operation. She had functioning ovaries with healthy eggs and all of her external sex organs.

“The results provide proof-of-concept for a new treatment option for absolute uterine factor infertility,” wrote co-authors Dr. Dani Ejzenberg, an ob/gyn at the University of Sao Paulo and Hospital das Clínicas in Brazil, and Dr. Wellington Andraus, a transplant surgeon at the Sao Paulo University School of Medicine in the study.

In order for a cadaver donor to be a good match, they need to have the proper blood type and she would have to have a healthy uterus. The donor in this case already had three vaginal births and was an otherwise healthy woman, aside from the fact that she had a stroke.

The mother was able to deliver a healthy baby girl via C-section. She was 35 weeks pregnant and the baby weighed almost 6 pounds. The decision to take the baby early and to do so via C-section was to limit risks to both the baby and the mother. When the C-section was taking place, the uterus was removed so that she would no longer have to take immunosuppressants.

The baby is healthy, growing normally and breast-feeding just fine. She is almost ready to celebrate her first birthday and there were no major complications to the mother.

There have been a number of successful womb transplants, including one in 2013 in Sweden. Thanks to this successful transplant, it has been established that a deceased donor can be used. This provides hope to the one in 4500 women who are born with an absent or underdeveloped uterus. It is also providing hope for other women who have uterine problems that keep them from carrying a child.