The uterus transplant has been a topic that has caused a lot of controversy in recent years, as there are those who consider that the risk is too high not to be a vital organ - as in the case of a heart or kidney transplant - while that other people believe is something wonderful and a great advance of science.
Now thanks to this transplant, a woman who was born without a uterus just gave birth to a baby, and although it is not the first baby in the world born from a transplanted uterus, it is the first in the United States.
Some years ago we were still wondering if it was possible to be a mother after having had a uterus transplant, and some time later, the news of a woman in Sweden who had succeeded went around the world. Now, The United States joins that group of countries where they have achieved a full-term pregnancy in a transplanted uterus, which took place at the Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.
The uterus donor, a nurse and mother of two children
The now first-time mother, who has asked for her identity to remain anonymous, is a woman who had been born without a uterus and who could now become a mother thanks to a nurse named Taylor Siler, who had decided not to have any more children and upon learning transplant program He signed up as a will to donate his uterus and thus give someone else the opportunity to become a mother.
Taylor has two 4 and 6 year old children and comments exclusively for Time that she herself had relatives who had struggled a lot to have children and didn't think it was fair. Consider that being able to give other women the opportunity to be a mother is something incredible.
In order to be selected and participate as a uterus donor, Taylor had to undergo many medical and psychological studiesOnce approved, the surgery was performed and had a recovery of about 12 weeks.
Although Taylor never knew the identity of the woman to whom she donated her uterus, she comments that they both exchanged letters the day they would perform the transplant and that some time later, the now mother wrote to tell her that she had become pregnant. When he was informed that he had given birth to a healthy baby, Taylor could not contain his emotion: "I've been crying when I think about that. I think about her every day and I probably will for the rest of my life".
Uterus transplant
According to Time information, This case is one of the 10 that are performing in a first clinical study at the Baylor University Medical Center, of which they carry 8 transplants performed and there is currently another pregnant woman. The birth of this baby was carried out through a scheduled caesarean section and most of the medical staff who are participating in the clinical study were present.
"We have been preparing for this moment for a long time"says Dr. Liza Johannesson, who is a gynecologist and the surgeon who performs the uterus transplants."I think we all had tears of joy when the baby came out. I definitely had them".
"We do transplants all day. This is not the same. I had totally underestimated what this type of transplant does for these women. I have no words to describe what I have learned emotionally"says Dr. Guiliano Testa, the clinical trial leader and head of abdominal transplant surgery at the Baylor Annette C. and Harold C. Simmons Transplant Institute.
For his part, Dr. Robert T. Gunby Jr., who was the gynecologist who received the baby said: "I have received many babies, but this one was special. When I started my career there were not even ultrasounds. Now we are putting wombs on other women and having babies".
For many of the doctors who were in the caesarean section, the most emotional moment was when Dr. Gunby first held the baby in his hands: "In addition to my children, this is the most excited thing I've been about the birth of a baby. I just started to cry"said Dr. Gregory J. McKenna, a transplant surgeon at the Medical Center.
No doubt this kind of news it gives more hope to women who can't have children, either because your uterus has a problem or you were born without it. Doctors say it might even work for women with other medical problems, such as certain types of cancer.
