LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA) – Doctors have successfully carried out a womb transplant in United Kingdom, making it the first ever in medical history.
According to surgeons at the Oxford Transplant Centre, UK, 34-year-old woman received a womb from her 40-year-old sister, who has two children of her own.
The recipient was “incredibly happy” and “over the moon” following the nine-hour operation, Isabel Quiroga, a consultant surgeon at the Centre, told The Guardian.
The woman, who is married, plans to try to have two children with IVF using the five embryos she had frozen.
She was born with a rare condition that left her womb underdeveloped. Donations to Womb Transplant UK covered the cost of the surgery, which totaled around $32,000.
According to Quiroga, she was able to leave the hospital after 10 days.
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“She was absolutely over the moon, very happy and is hoping that she can go on to have not one, but two babies.
“Her womb is functioning perfectly, and we are monitoring her progress very closely,” Quiroga said.
Co-lead surgeon Richard Smith called it a “massive success.”
“It was incredible,” Smite told The Guardian, adding that the medical team and the recipient were almost “in tears” during the post-operation consultation.
“I think it was probably the most stressful week in my surgical career, but also unbelievably positive. The donor and recipient are over the moon, just over the moon.
“I’m just really happy that we’ve got a donor who is completely back to normal after her big op, and the recipient is, after her big op, doing really well on her immunosuppressive therapy and looking forward to hopefully having a baby,” he added.
More than 90 womb transplants have been carried out in different countries, including in Sweden, the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, China, Czech Republic, Brazil, Germany, Serbia and India. However, this is the first womb transplant to happen in the UK.