Thousands of Women Are Born Without a Uterus. A New Procedure Offers Them Hope

On an afternoon in November, a couple hosted a birthday party for their 1-year-old son. As family and friends gathered around the child to sing “Happy Birthday,” his parents addressed a milestone that reached well beyond the room. “It was emotional,” recalls the mother. “It took a lot more than a nine-month pregnancy to get him, and we wouldn’t be where we are without everyone’s support.” Many parents will tell you their child is miraculous. But the mere existence of this particular boy, who just a month earlier had taken his first steps, brings the miracle somehow closer to literal–and not just for this family. The boy’s birth was historic, the first time a baby had been born from a transplanted uterus in the U.S., and offered hope to women around the world who thought they’d never carry a child. “We didn’t just do this for our family. We did this for families down the road,” the mother says. When she was 16, the now-mother visited her doctor, concerned that she hadn’t gotten her period. It was during that first gynecological exam that her physician gave her a diagnosis she felt ill-equipped to handle as a teenager: she was among the 1 in 4,500 women worldwide with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, which means she was born without a uterus. Though she had functioning ovaries, there was no way she could get pregnant or carry a baby. (The couple asked that their identi...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized fertility Research Source Type: news