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Woman Becomes World’s First to Give Birth After a Womb Transplant

By Cheri Cheng | Update Date: Oct 04, 2014 12:48 PM EDT

According to health officials, a Swedish woman became the first woman in the world to give birth successfully after receiving a womb transplant. The doctor in charge of this project announced that the woman, who will remain anonymous, gave birth to a healthy baby boy in early September via a Cesarean section.

"The baby is fantastic," said Dr. Mats Brannstrom, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm IVF, reported by the Wall Street Journal. He delivered the baby with the help of his wife, who is a midwife. "But it is even better to see the joy in the parents and how happy he made them."

The woman, who was born without a uterus, was a part of a project that implanted nine women with a womb, followed by in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment. All of the women received a uterus from a live donor. In most cases, the donor was the patient's mother. For this particular Swede, a 61-year-old woman, who was not related to the patient, donated the uterus. The procedure was done about two years ago.

The researchers stated that the success could open up more possibilities for infertile women. According to Brannstrom, several other programs in Europe, the U.S., Australia and China have been waiting for this project's results before starting their own.

"There are some more pregnant," Brannstrom told Reuters. "They are more than 28 weeks pregnant. When we have the results of other studies, we will know how effective the procedure is and what the risks are."

The University of Gothenburg had received permission to perform 10 womb transplants. Each woman can have up to two full-term pregnancies. So far, two of the nine women have already gotten their transplanted wombs removed. The remaining seven patients will also get their wombs removed after treatment.

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