UK carries out first-ever womb transplant

The first womb transplant has been carried out by surgeons on a woman in the United Kingdom, with the woman’s sister being the living womb donor.

Surgeons at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, successfully transplanted a sister’s womb to her 34-year-old sibling in an operation that lasted nine hours and 20 minutes on Sunday,

The unidentified married recipient from England was born with a rare condition, meaning her original womb was underdeveloped. She received a donor womb from her 40-year-old sister, who already had two children of her own.

The recipient was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome, which is a rare ¬congenital reproductive disorder that affects one in 5,000 women. Sufferers of this syndrome have an underdeveloped vagina and/or missing womb.

The co-lead surgeon Isabel Quiroga, a consultant surgeon at the Oxford Transplant Centre, part of Oxford University hospitals, said she was “thrilled” and “extremely proud” the surgery had been a success.

The recipient, who lives in England and asked not to be named, received her sister’s uterus in February and was well enough to leave the hospital 10 days after the surgical procedure.