Woman gives birth to first US womb-transplant baby

A woman has become the first in the United States to give birth using a transplanted womb.

The woman who had been born without a uterus gave birth to the baby at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas.

A hospital spokesman confirmed the birth, but said gave no other details are available.

Baylor has had a study underway for several years to enroll up to 10 women for uterus transplants. The hospital said four women had received transplants in October 2016 but three of the wombs had to be removed because of poor blood flow.

The hospital would give no further information on how many transplants have been performed since then. But Time magazine, which first reported the US baby’s birth, says eight have been done in all, and that another woman is currently pregnant as a result.

While this is the first uterus transplant birth in the US, the medical milestone was first achieved three years in Sweden. Dr. Mats Brannstrom, deliver a baby as a result of a uterus transplant in the world in October 2014. As of last year, he had delivered five babies from women with donated wombs.

There have been at least 16 uterus transplants worldwide.

Womb donors can be dead or alive, and the Baylor study aims to use some of both. The first four cases involved “altruistic” donors — unrelated and unknown to the recipients. The ones done in Sweden were from live donors, mostly from the recipients’ mother or a sister.

Doctors hope that womb transplants will enable as many as several thousand women born without a uterus to bear children.