Woman With Transplanted Womb Gives Birth In Sweden To Healthy Boy

A 36-year-old woman in Sweden who had received a transplanted womb has given birth to a healthy boy, the Telegraph reported on Friday. The child, now at home with his mother, was born last month by caesarean section in the 31st week of pregnancy and weighed 3.9 pounds at delivery.

"The baby is fantastic," Dr. Mats Brannstrom, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Gothenburg and Stockholm IVF, told the Associated Press. The mother reportedly received the womb transplant from a close family member last year. Neither the mother nor the child were identified.

Though the procedure is still considered experimental, its success opens up the possibility for women who have lost their uteruses to cancer or other ailments to have children.

"We have demonstrated the feasibility of live-donor uterus transplantation, even from a postmenopausal donor," Brannstrom told the medical journal Lancet.

Prior to last month's medical first, the only option for women without a uterus wanting a child was by adopting or engaging a surrogate mother.

The pregnancy wasn’t without complications. The child was delivered in the 31st week of pregnancy due to the mother developing pre-eclampsia, a high blood pressure condition, according to the CBC report.

Brannstrom said there are two other pregnancies from transplanted wombs that are at least 25 weeks long.

The first attempt at transplanting a uterus was performed in Saudi Arabia in 2000, but the transplant failed, according to the New York Times.

Details of the case were published on Friday in the medical journal Lancet.