Baby born from dead donor’s uterus

NEW DELHI: THE world’s irst BABY born using a womb transplanted from a dead woman is a breakthrough in the field of obstetrics and a great advantage for women combating infertility, say Indian doctors.

According to a case study published in The Lancet on Wednesday, a healthy baby girl was born in 2017, following the uterus transplant from a 45-year-old brain dead woman.

The womb transplant, lasting over 10 hours, took place in Sao Paolo in Brazil in September 2016. The baby was born in December 2017.

The uterus was removed from the donor and transplanted into the recipient in a surgery that also involved connecting the donor uterus and recipient’s veins and arteries, ligament and vaginal canals.

“It Is A Breakthrough In THE ield of obstetrics as well as a great advantage for women who lost their uterus for some reason or don’t have from birth. This would increase the availability of the uterus as living donors are always in scarcity,” Ranjana Sharma, Senior Consultant, (Obstetrics and Gynaecology), Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi, told IANS.

In a majority of such cases, the uterus does not survive after transplant in the recipient due to infections or rejection by the body’s immune system.

But in the case of a uterus transplant from a cadaver, the potential danger for infections is more, says Kamini A. Rao, Medical Director, Milann-the Fertility Centre, Bengaluru. “One will never be ABLE to ind WHETHER THE DEAD woman has had any infections in the uterus, nor in the vaginal canals and whether it is treatable or not,” Rao told IANS.

“This is not in the case of a kidney or liver transplant, clearly because the vagina is an exposed area and since you are unable to identify what kind of organisms were growing, there is a potential danger for rejection,” Rao added.

Still, the advantage is that the surgery takes place only for a person. It is a very good thing compared to a live donor, she noted.