Swedish Woman Delivered Baby Successfully After Getting World's First Womb Transplant From Another Woman
"Vincent" meaning "to conquer" is the name of the first baby in the world born to a woman with a transplanted womb. She wanted a baby with a "victorious" name, according to ABC News. The mother confessed that the minute she "felt this perfect baby boy on my chest," she shed tears of happiness and enormous relief. She confessed to feeling like a mother, and "amazed" that they had done it.
The father too was excited and amazed that they had completed the tough journey. "He is very, very cute, and he doesn't even scream, he just murmurs," according to People. Both the parents were athletes, and decided to go for it even though it was the first case of a womb transplant. The baby had been born last month, and is said to be doing well.
The 36-year-old Swedish mother was told that she lacked a womb when she was 15, and had been "devastated" She had a syndrome that affects one girl out of 4,500, called Rokitansky syndrome, according to GMA Network. One decade later, she heard about research by Dr. Mats Brannstrom, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm IVF. She heard about his experiments on transplanting wombs, and signed up for it. Although there was no guarantee, she decided to take the risk and go for it. The Jane and Dan Olsson Foundation for Science, a Swedish charity organisation,paid for the experiment.
Dr. Brannstrom expressed some surprise that a uterus, he had transplanted from an old woman had been successful but was glad that at least they have managed it. The donor was already in menopause, after having two children. The Swedish mother took three medicines, and then got her menstrual period six weeks after the transplant. Doctors had transferred a single embryo they created in a lab dish with her eggs and her husband's sperm.Her mother offered to be a donor, but there was no match. So she got her new womb from a 61-year-old family friend, who already had two sons. The donor is now baby Vincent's godmother, while her two sons also dropped in to see the baby.
Brannstrom was thrilled with the success of his first transplant. Many critics had questioned where a transplanted womb would help a foetus to grow, or whether such an expensive medical research would work out for them. As it required a long surgery, and was risky, it was still being questioned. The baby was delivered by Caesarean section, after the doctors found that he had an abnormal fetal heart rate. He weighed 3.9 pounds (1.8 kg), which was normal for that stage, as complete gestation was only about 40 weeks. About 10 days after birth, the baby was released from the neonatal unit. Brannstrom said he was worried that he may have affected the womb during the C-section and said they would have to wait a couple of months before knowing if a second pregnancy is possible.
Brannstrom and colleagues had earlier transplanted wombs into nine women for two years, but they were forced to remove two of the organs. Earlier this year, he began to transfer embryos into seven others. There are two other pregnancies too, that are 25 weeks old.
Earlier, there were failed attempts in Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Interestingly, there have been some experiments in Britain, France, Japan, Turkey and elsewhere too where wombs from women who have just died are transplanted, instead of from live donors.