In a first, a woman with a uterus transplanted from a deceased donor gives birth
The healthy baby girl celebrates her first birthday this month
For the first time, a woman has given birth after receiving a uterus from a deceased donor.
A reported 11 women have had babies after uterus transplants from living donors. But this breakthrough, described online December 4 in the Lancet, could boost the availability of viable organs for women who want to become pregnant but lack a womb.
“Everyone was waiting to see whether [a deceased donor] would work with the same success” as a living donor, says abdominal transplant surgeon Giuliano Testa. Testa, who was not involved in this case, was a member of the team at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas that reported earlier this year the first U.S. baby born, in 2017, after a living donor uterus transplant. The first such birth worldwide occurred in Sweden in 2014.