Baby Born after Successful Uterus Transplant from a Deceased Donor for the First Time in US History

History was made in the United States after a successful delivery of a baby from a uterus transplant at the Cleveland Clinic.

For the first time in the United States, a woman who underwent a uterus transplant successfully delivered a baby girl via c-section at the Cleveland Clinic.

The uterus was gotten from a dead donor and transferred to the unnamed recipient who is in her thirties, back in 2017. In 2018, the new mother underwent IVF treatments, became pregnant, and delivered the baby this June.

Cleveland Clinic’s maternal-fetal medicine specialist, Dr. Uma Perni, said in a press statement released on the Clinic's website that they could not have asked for a better outcome.

Perni stated that everything went according to plan, and there were no complications. She added that the mother and daughter are healthy, but emphasized that the transplant is still in the research phase.

The research — Uterine Transplantation for the Treatment Uterine Factor Infertility — is a clinical trial, and a complete success means that it would become a viable option for women in the future.

It would equally mean that women who have uterus factor infertility would be able to carry their pregnancies to term and deliver their babies. Statistics have shown that around the world, there is 1 out of every 500 women of childbearing age who suffer from the irreversible condition.

Andreas Tzakis, the transplant surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, called it, “An extraordinary achievement,” adding that he is hopeful that soon, women would choose the uterus transplant option.

Tzakis also thanked the donor and her family for their benevolence, which allowed their patient’s dream to come through and a new baby to come into the world.

So far, the clinic has had five transplants with two unsuccessful, and three successful. The former led to hysterectomies, while two women from the latter are awaiting embryo transplant.

A similar procedure occurred in Brazil in 2016; a 32-year-old woman got a uterus transplant from a deceased donor, and by 2017, the recipient delivered a baby girl at the Hospital das Clinicas at the University of Sao Paulo.

In the Brazil case, the woman had the uterus removed after delivery and stopped taking the drugs that prevented her body from rejecting the organ.

According to one of the doctors’ on the transplant team, Wellington Andraus, the success of the procedure means that lack of a uterus will no longer be a problem for women who wish to carry their baby.

Cleveland Clinic, based on their protocol, only use uterus from deceased donors to mitigate the risk to live ones, and only women between the ages of 21 and 39 are allowed into the trial.