Uterus Transplant Recipient In The US Gives Birth For The First Time.

The Baby,
Uterus Transplant Recipient In The US Gives Birth For The First Time.

A woman who is part of an ongoing uterus transplant clinical trial received a uterus transplant has given birth to a baby, which is actually the first in the US. The woman who is part of an ongoing uterine transplant clinical trial taking place at the Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas and, like the other women in the trial, she has a nonfunctioning or nonexistent uterus as the case may be. Her uterus was donated by another woman, by name Taylor Siler, who wanted to be able to give someone else the kind opportunity to have a child. However, the trial, which accepts both living donations, like Siler's, and donations from deceased individuals, will complete 10 good transplants. So far eight transplants have been completed already and while at least three of them have failed so far, a second trial participant is now pregnant following a successful transplant, and all fingers crossed they hope for a successful outcome.

While this is actually a first for the US, however, it is not the first ever recorded. A group of medical experts in Sweden achieved the very first post-transplant births, a total of eight, and the childbirth that just took place at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas is the first to replicate that of the Swedish team's success.

The childbirth at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas was indeed a great moment for everyone involved in the trial. "we do transplants all day long," Giuliano Testa, head of the clinical trial, said. "This is not the same thing. I totally underestimated what this type of transplant does for these women. What I have learned emotionally, I do not have the words to describe them." Gregory McKenna, whom is also a transplant surgeon at the Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas said, "Outside my own children, this is the most excited I have ever been about any baby being born. I just started to cry."

Nevertheless, once a uterus is transplanted, the recipient must wait to achieve menstruation, which if the transplant is successful, usually occurs around four weeks later. Then, to get pregnant, they must go through in-vitro fertilization since their uterus is not attached to their ovaries.

The Baylor University Medical Center team says that many more uterine transplants will need to be done before this can become an approved treatment, but these initial successes recorded are promising. "For the girl who is getting the infertility diagnosis now, it is not hopeless," Kristin Wallis, a uterine transplant nurse at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas said. "There is hope."