The earlier 10 similar transplants from dead donors attempted in the US, the Czech Republic and Turkey failed or resulted in a miscarriage. © Shutterstock.
In a medical milestone, the world’s first baby has been born using a womb transplanted from a dead woman, a Lancet study says.
The womb transplant, lasting over 10 hours took place in Brazil’s Sao Paolo in September 2016. The baby was born in December 2017.
The uterus was removed from the donor and transplanted into the recipient in a surgery that also involved connecting the donor uterus’ and recipient’s veins and arteries, ligament, and vaginal canals.
The earlier 10 similar transplants from dead donors attempted in the US, the Czech Republic and Turkey failed or resulted in a miscarriage. However, for 32-year-old recipient born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, it proved lucky.
“The use of deceased donors could greatly broaden access to this treatment, and our results provide proof-of-concept for a new option for women with uterine infertility,” said lead author Dani Ejzenberg, Hospital das Clinicas, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Sao Paulo.
Since the recipient’s ovaries were fine, she underwent one in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) cycle four months before the transplant, Ejzenberg said.
Later the doctors fertilised her eggs with the father-to-be’s sperm and froze them.
The donor had died of subarachnoid haemorrhage — a type of stroke involving bleeding on the surface of the brain.
The baby girl was born via caesarean section at 35 weeks and three days and weighed 2.5 kilograms. The transplanted uterus was removed during the caesarean section and showed no anomalies, the study showed.