IN SUMMARY
- UK’s performs first womb transplant.
- Sibling donates womb after having 2 children of her own.
The United Kingdom has made medical history with doctors carrying out the country’s first womb transplant.
Following a research that has taken more than 25yrs, a team has performed the first womb transplant in the UK, giving a woman who was born without a functioning womb the possibility of getting pregnant and carrying her own baby.
The transplant which was undertaken as part of the UK living donor program me, was sponsored and funded by the charity Womb Transplant UK, following approval from the Human Tissue Authority.
Reason for Womb Transplant
The recipient of the womb, also called a uterus, was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH), a rare condition that impacts women’s reproductive systems. In order to conceive, she stored her embryos with the goal of undergoing in vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatments later this year.
But her sister, 40, was willing to donate her uterus after giving birth to her own two children, facilitating a womb transplant procedure.
The womb transplant operations were co-led by Professor Richard Smith and Miss Isabel Quiroga. Professor Smith, who is also founder and chair of the charity Womb Transplant UK, is a consultant gynecological surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and professor of practice at Imperial College London.
He said: “This is a first for the UK, following over 25 years of research, and is only possible thanks to the recipient’s sister who came forward and was willing to donate
“It is still very early days but, if all continues to go well, we hope the recipient will continue to progress, and be in a position to have a baby in the coming years. We are grateful to the charity Womb Transplant UK for funding the transplant and to our highly talented colleagues for their time and expertise over many years.
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Isabel Quiroga is an OUH consultant transplant and endocrine surgeon and clinical lead for organ retrieval at the Oxford Transplant Centre.
She said: “It was a privilege to carry out the UK’s first womb transplant. The operations, while long and complex, went according to plan and I am delighted to see that the donor and recipient are recovering well.
