It happened in Brazil where a 32-year-old woman gave birth to a girl after receiving a uterus transplant from a woman who had died for a stroke. The mother was born without a uterus due to a congenital disease that affects one in 4,500 women, although she did have ovaries and produced eggs.
Although it has already been tried on at least a dozen occasions, it is the first time that the birth of a live baby is achieved after the transplant, a medical milestone that opens the door to a new opportunity to conceive for women with fertility problems uterine
It had been tried in other countries
At least ten cases of uterine transplants from deceased donors are known in the US, Czech Republic and Turkey, but after none of them was born a live child.
On this occasion, according to the medical publication The Lancet, in September 2016, a 32-year-old woman with congenital uterine absence (Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome) underwent a uterine transplant at the Hospital de Clínicas, Universidad from São Paulo, Brazil.
In the operation, which lasted more than 10 hours, the recipient donated the implanted organ and was connected to her veins, arteries, ligaments and vaginal channels. Seven months later, and without rejection, the woman had menstruation.
The pregnancy occurred after the first transfer of a single embryo which resulted in a pregnancy without complications.
At 35 weeks and three days, a girl who weighed two and a half kilos was born by caesarean section.
In Babies and more, the first baby from a transplanted uterus is born in the United StatesThe first birth that occurred after a live donor's uterine transplant took place in Sweden in 2013 and was also published in 'The Lancet'.
Without a doubt, it is a milestone in the history of reproduction that opens the possibility for many women with uterine infertilityFor congenital defects or those whose uterus has been removed, they can conceive and give birth to a baby.
A great medical breakthrough
To date, 39 transplants have been tried among living people of which only 11 healthy babies were born. Most of the time, the donors are mothers, sisters or intimate friends of the recipients, so the availability of organs is very limited.
Expert opinions on this new technique are divided. For some, it raises a new ethical debate: “It is a technical achievement that is very questionable from an ethical point of view,” according to Beatriz Domínguez-Gil, director of the National Transplant Organization (ONT). “The risks that the mother assumes and the impact on the fetus do not compensate for the ultimate goal of conceiving a baby and there are also viable alternatives, such as adoption,” he explains in El País.
On the other hand, there are those who consider it a great medical advance from which a significant number of women with fertility problems could benefit. As every time a procedure of this type is performed for the first time, the uterus transplant from a deceased woman It raises new questions. What do you think?
In Babies and more A woman gives birth after receiving a uterus transplant from her twin sister: first case in the world
