Surgeons to carry out life-changing womb transplants in UK

The clinical trial that will be carried out by Imperial College Healthcare trust is expected to be launched in the spring. A few 1 in 5,000 women are born without a womb, while others lose their womb to cancer, resulting in surrogacy or adoption as the only remaining paths to motherhood.

The decision follows a successful trial in Sweden, where a woman became the first person in the world to give birth to a baby after having a womb transplant.

Womb Transplant United Kingdom, who will be leading the trial, now has 104 potential transplant patients that have met their requirements. The consultant gynaecologist at the Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea hospital, who has been working on the project for nearly 20 years, said he was “really, really pleased” to obtain ethical approval for the transplants.

“For many couples, childlessness is a disaster”, said Dr Richard Smith.

How would the procedure work? Instead, doctors will take wombs from donors who are brain dead but whose hearts are still beating. The first successful pregnancy of a woman who had undergone womb transplant was reported in October 2014 by The Lancet. ‘There is an innate desire in many women to carry their own baby. Smith said in a statement: “For many couples, childlessness is a disaster”.

Infertility in women is not easy to treat. Surrogacy is good option but it does not fulfill woman desire to carry her own baby. Those criteria include having a long-term partner, being of a healthy weight, and being under the age of 39.

“As we have seen from the tremendously successful womb transplant program being carried out by our colleagues in Sweden, this operation is clearly a viable option for those women who otherwise have absolutely no chance of carrying their own baby.”

Before the trial starts, embryos will be created and frozen using each woman’s eggs and sperm from her partner.

Womb transplants have already been successfully performed elsewhere.

The embryo can only be implanted after 12 months of treatment with immunosuppressant drugs, which stop the woman rejecting the new organ. If all goes smoothly, a baby would be delivered nine months later by caesarean. Since then, three other babies were born in the same country from donated wombs.

The trial needs to raise £50,000 before it can take place, with each operation estimated to cost around £40,000, according to BBC News.

Organ donor chiefs say about five wombs a year could be made available to the surgical team. “As soon as I felt this flawless baby boy on my chest, I had tears of happiness and enormous relief”, said the mother.

“The project has run with no money from the start”.