First baby born to woman with uterus transplanted from deceased donor

cnn ^ | 12/05/2018 | Susan Scutti

[BenLurkin]

The transplant recipient, who had been born without a uterus, was 32 years old at the time of the surgery in September 2016. (The patient's identity remains anonymous, which is typical for published case studies.)

Her diagnosis: Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, a genetic condition that affects one in 4,500 women and causes a patient's vagina and uterus to be either absent or underdeveloped, although her external genitals appear normal and her ovaries still function and contain eggs. Months before receiving a uterus transplant, the patient underwent in-vitro fertilization. This resulted in eight good-quality early-stage embryos, which were cryopreserved in the hopes of being used after a uterus transplant.

The donor, a 45-year-old woman who died of a stroke, was deemed a good candidate because she had had three vaginal deliveries during her life, she had no reported sexual disease and her blood type, O-positive, matched that of the recipient.

The procedure to transfer the uterus from donor to recipient lasted more than 10 hours. The surgery involved connecting the recipient's veins and arteries, ligaments and vaginal canals with the donated uterus. For eight days, the recipient remained in the hospital, where she received five immunosuppression drugs, which control the body's natural instinct to fight off and reject a transplanted organ.

Five months after the transplant, the recipient showed no signs of rejecting the uterus, and for the first time in her life, she experienced menstruation. Ultrasound scans also showed no

[skr]

And another adoptable child remains parentless.

[zeestephen]

Re: Uterus Transplant

Oh, my.

Get ready for a deluge of male “mothers.”

Any chance we will figure out how to transplant intelligence and common sense?

[metmom]

I hate to think of the effect of the immunosuppressive drugs on the developing baby.

[exDemMom]

There is something ghoulish about this.

In addition, a trait that would be weeded out through normal evolutionary process is now preserved. I think that assisted reproduction technologies are a threat to human survival, because of the fact that they bypass evolutionary processes. When couples that cannot conceive naturally have assistance to conceive, any genetic issues that prevented them from having babies naturally are preserved in their offspring. The process of natural selection is bypassed. The more this happens, the more genetic issues are preserved in the population; eventually, it could become rare for babies to be conceived naturally.

Meanwhile, almost a million healthy babies conceived by reproductively healthy women are slaughtered every year.

[mewzilla]

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)31766-5/fulltext

Very interesting reading. Drugs used are listed. They removed the uterus during the C section.

[Tax-chick]

There is something ghoulish about this.

Yes, there is. There's already something unnerving about organ transplantation in general, and this is exacerbated by the fact that people are killed for their organs. In China, it's just that simple, while here, patients are declared brain-dead while biologically humming along so that their organs can be harvested in tip-top shape.

When you go from life-saving transplants (heart, liver) to lifestyle-choice transplants, it gets super-creepy. As observed above, once it's been done for a woman, it will be done for a man as soon as possible, and then things are really sick.

[exDemMom]

Indeed.

I can’t help but think that the overall fitness for survival of the human race is threatened by things like this.

Those who can afford such procedures (who, to a large part, represent the more intelligent humans) rely more and more on “assisted reproduction”, while poor humans (who, to a large part, are the less intelligent) who cannot afford these procedures continue to reproduce naturally. These trends have long-term consequences.

I do not know if it would be possible for a man to give birth using these procedures. He would have a soup of drugs in his system—hormone suppressors and replacement hormones to simulate female characteristics, as well as immune suppressors to prevent rejection of the transplanted uterus. During pregnancy (as I am sure you know well!), the mother’s body undergoes dynamic hormonal changes throughout the pregnancy; how well can that be replicated artificially? Even if such a pregnancy were successfully maintained until term, what would the long-term consequences of it be on the child? On boys, I would think the consequences would be worse than for girls, because boys develop as boys when their testes begin producing testosterone early in development; if their gestating father is taking hormone suppressors and those cross the placental barrier, the effects on a developing boy would be dire.

I am firmly of the belief that just because we can do something does not mean we should do it. I say this as a scientist.

[Tax-chick]

I am firmly of the belief that just because we can do something does not mean we should do it.

So am I. There are many things we can do that are absolutely wrong. For example, I could easily take a few steps and brain any one of four sons with a brick, but that would be absolutely wrong.

[a fool in paradise]

[House Atreides]

I sure hope the “genetic condition” was not passed on to the baby and subsequent generations.

[Tax-chick]

Mother and child have experienced no complications or abnormalities.

I assume this means the baby was born with a uterus, unlike the mother.

[Morpheus2009]

At this point, wouldn’t there be tons of immunosuppressive drugs and steroids in you? I just don’t see a point to it as a guy because I already have a way to become a father.