INCREDIBLE

Baby Girl Born After Womb Transplant

First time a transplant from a dead donor has resulted in a live birth.

A woman in Brazil has become the world’s first to successfully give birth after receiving a womb transplant from a dead donor. Writing in The Lancet, the medical team say they removed a womb from a 45-year-old woman who had died from a burst blood vessel in her brain and who had previously given birth three times. The recipient was a 32-year-old woman whose uterus and vagina failed to develop properly. Just over a month after the transplant, the woman’s periods started, and seven months after the operation the team transferred an embryo to her. The pregnancy went smoothly and a baby girl was delivered by Caesarean section at just over 35 weeks, the first time such a procedure had worked (although womb transplants from living donors have been successful). Once the baby was delivered, the team removed the womb in the same operation, because of the cost of keeping the woman on immunosuppressive drugs.