In a medical first, a Swedish woman has given birth after having a womb transplant.
The 36-year-old, has a genetic condition where she was born without a womb but her ovaries were intact. The woman and her husband went through IVF to produce 11 embryos which were frozen, according to BBC News.
After a 61-year-old family friend, who had undergone the menopause seven years previously, donated her womb, the woman underwent a womb transplant.
A year after the transplant, doctors implanted one of the frozen embryos and the woman became pregnant.
Last month, the baby boy, weighing 3.9 pounds, was delivered at 31 weeks after his mother developed pre-eclampsia.
Mother and baby are said to be doing well and the Lancet Medical Journal has described the birth as “a breakthrough for infertile women”.
The identity of the couple has not been released but it is thought that the baby was born at the Sahlgrenska Academy in Sweden.
Liza Johannesson, a gynaecological surgeon on the team, said: “It gives hope to those women and men that thought they would never have a child, that thought they were out of hope.”
“Our success is based on more than ten years of intensive animal research and surgical training by our team and opens up the possibility of treating many young females worldwide that suffer from uterine infertility,” said Professor Matts Braennstroem of the University of Gothenburg who led the operation.
