CLEVELAND, OHIO – According to Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic, the first baby in the United States born from a womb transplanted into a patient from a deceased donor has been born, a major breakthrough for modern medical science.
Typically, uterine transplants make use of wombs donated by living donors, usually from a friend or family member. But the Cleveland Clinic, via a statement by transplant surgeon Andreas Tzakis on their website, noted that their exhaustive research has lead to the ability to acquire wombs from a deceased donor – a living donor requires far more complex surgery to safely remove the womb than a non-living donor – and effectively preserve a short time until needed.
“Through this research, we aim to make these extraordinary events ordinary for the women who choose this option,” she said. “We are grateful to the donor. Their generosity allowed our patient’s dream to come true and a new baby to be born.”
The baby, a girl, was born in June, according to the Cleveland Clinic, and is the first carried completely to turn of the three successful – out of five attempted – uterus transplants the clinic has conducted so far.
The world’s first birth from a dead donor’s womb occurred in December of 2018 in Brazil. Womb transplants from living donors were originally pioneered in Sweden, which performed the procedure successfully for the first time in 2014.