World’s first womb-transplant baby born to a Swedish woman

World’s first womb-transplant baby was born to a 36-year-old Swedish woman. The identity of the woman was not disclosed.

The healthy baby boy was born in August 2014 at the University of Gothenburg's hospital in Sweden. The baby boy weighing 1.775kgs was born by Caesarean section at 31 weeks after the mother developed pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy condition.

How it happened?

The woman had to undergo womb transplant as she was suffering from a genetic condition called Rokitansky syndrome wherein the woman is born without a womb, although the ovaries are intact.
The replacement womb came from a 61-year-old woman, who was a friend of the woman. The organ was transplanted in a 10-hour operation in 2013.

The recipient underwent in-vitro fertilisation, in which eggs were harvested from her ovaries and fertilised using sperm from her partner, and then cryogenically preserved.

A year after the transplant, a single early-stage embryo was inserted into the transplanted womb. A pregnancy test three weeks later was positive.

The significance of the development

This feat is a boon to women with no uterine. The absence of uterine has been one of the major causes of infertility. The uterine is absent in women either due to heredity or due to surgical removal for medical reasons. The development in fact smashes through the last major barrier of female infertility.

Absolute uterine factor infertility was the only major type of female infertility that was viewed as untreatable.