A baby boy born in Texas is the first in the United States to be delivered from a transplanted uterus. The delivery is an important milestone in uterine transplant clinical trials in the United States.
Successful Delivery From Transplanted Uterus
A special baby boy recently born in Baylor University Medical Center makes history as the very first successful delivery from a transplanted uterus in the United States. The child's mother was just one of many women under the uterine transplant clinical trials at Baylor.
The delivery was done via a scheduled caesarean section with a multidisciplinary team present during the unique birth. It was a special moment for the team as it not only hallmarks the success of the clinical trials but also because they helped a woman who thought that she would not be able to have a child.
"Outside my own children, this is the most excited I've ever been about any baby being born. I just started to cry," said Dr. Gregory J. McKenna, the obstetrician and gynecologist who delivered the baby.
BREAKING: Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas Announces First Baby Born in United States to Mother Who Received #UterusTransplant. pic.twitter.com/Lp0RJmuRvj
— Baylor Scott & White (@bswhealth) December 1, 2017
A Gift Of Life
The birth of the baby boy was a gift of life indeed, because the uterus he was delivered from was a donation from a Dallas nurse, Taylor Siler, who already had two children and wanted to give someone else the opportunity to be a mother.
According to Siler, she and her husband had already decided not to have any more kids and decided to share the gift of motherhood when she saw a feature about the uterus transplant program. She and the recipient of her uterus exchanged letters on the day of the transplant, and she received another letter from the recipient when she got pregnant.
Siler was just one of "altruistic" donors with many more expressing their willingness to donate.
Uterus Transplantation
The birth of the baby boy was a part of the Baylor, Scott & White uterine transplant clinical trials. So far, the hospital has done eight uterine transplants of which at least three were unsuccessful. However, Baylor has confirmed one more pregnancy from a living donor uterus.
Transplanted uteri may come from either living or deceased donors, and the recipients were either born without one or have a non-functioning or underdeveloped uterus. Many of them have a condition called the Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, which results in the vagina and uterus being underdeveloped or absent. The first noticeable sign of MRKH is when menstruation does not begin by 16 years old.
