Womb transplants hailed as success in pioneering Swedish project

Doctor says nine women have received wombs from relatives and will soon try to get pregnantNine women in Sweden have successfully received transplanted wombs donated by relatives and will soon try to become pregnant, has revealed. The women, mostly in their 30s, were born without a uterus or had it removed because of cervical cancer. They are part of the first major experiment to test whether it is possible to transplant wombs into women so they can give birth to their own children.Life-saving transplants of organs such as hearts, livers and kidneys have been done for decades and doctors are increasingly transplanting hands, faces and other body parts to improve patients' quality of life.There have been previous attempts to transplant a womb, in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but both failed to produce babies. Scientists in Britain, Hungary and elsewhere plan similar operations but the efforts in Sweden are the most advanced. "This is a new kind of surgery," Dr Mats Brannstrom said in an interview from Gothenburg. "We have no textbook to look at."Brannstrom, chair of the obstetrics and gynaecology department at the University of Gothenburg, is leading the initiative. Next month, he and colleagues will run the first-ever workshop on how to perform womb transplants and they plan to publish a scientific report on their efforts soon.He said the nine womb recipients were doing well. Many had had periods six weeks after the transplants, an early sign that the wombs were healthy and funct...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Tags: theguardian.com Fertility problems World news Health Medical research Society Europe Women Sweden Life and style Science Source Type: news