2017.12.01 11:34
Mallory Locklear
EngadgetDecember 1, 2017
A woman who received a uterus transplant has given birth to a baby -- a first in the US, Time reports.
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A woman who received a uterus transplant has given birth to a baby -- a first in the US, Time reports. She is part of an ongoing uterine transplant clinical trial taking place at Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas and she, like the other women in the trial, has a nonfunctioning or nonexistent uterus. Her uterus was donated by another woman, Taylor Siler, who wanted to be able to give someone else the opportunity to have a child. The trial, which accepts both living donations, like Siler's, and donations from deceased individuals, will complete 10 transplants. Eight have been completed already and while at least three have failed so far, a second trial participant is now pregnant following a successful transplant.
While this is a first for the US, it's not the first ever. A group in Sweden achieved the very first post-transplant births, a total of eight, and the birth that just took place at Baylor is the first to replicate the Swedish team's success.
The birth was a big moment for everyone involved in the trial. "We do transplants all day long," Giuliano Testa, head of the clinical trial, told Time. "This is not the same thing. I totally underestimated what this type of transplant does for these women. What I've learned emotionally, I do not have the words to describe." Gregory McKenna, a transplant surgeon at the hospital said, "Outside my own children, this is the most excited I've ever been about any baby being born. I just started to cry."
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 isn't attached to their ovaries.
The Baylor team says that many more uterine transplants will need to be done before this can become an approved treatment, but these initial successes are promising. "For the girl who is getting the [infertility] diagnosis now, it's not hopeless," Kristin Wallis, a uterine transplant nurse at Baylor told Time. "There's hope."
2017.12.01 21:59
2017.12.01 23:40
What a interesting and fascinating project.
Human endeaver toward betterment has been
on going in all different fields and I deeply
appreciate it and am proud as a fellow human.
Human uterus is not mere pouch for carrying
baby. It is site of developing mother and
child relationship and creating "motherhood",
which is the utmost holy feeling that human
could possess.
Thanks for the presentation! Dr Lee! KJ
2017.12.02 00:26
Amazing accomplishment!
Thanks for enlightening us as usual.
I predict Korean physicians will get on to this project right away,
knowing their low infertility rate, enthusiasm for new things.
2017.12.02 01:48
Thank you, Dr. Hwang and Dr. Cho, for your valuable comments.
We chose medical profession as our careers through the political and
economic turmoils and confusion in 50's, 60's and 70's
perhaps because the holy, the highest calling, medicine, gave us
the challenges, i.e. something we could contribute to our fellow country men
and women and the fellow human beings with a great passion and compassion.
This story in contrast to the current political situation here in America and Korea
reminds me of the past all of us lived through when we just looked inwards
and did our bests to concentrate on our studying with eyes closed and ears covered.
We certainly are proud of all the medical professionals and scientists who are continuing
their sincere efforts in all frontiers of medicine for the benefit of mankind.
The combination of uterus transplant and in vitro fertilization theoretically solves the
problem for the infertile women, which has never been possible in the past,
as demonstrated here in this case.