Womb transplant recipient says she prayed for opportunity to bear children

The recipient of the first uterus transplant in the US said that she prayed for years to be able to bear a child, and is grateful to the deceased donor’s family and surgeons who’ve given her that chance.

Doctors at the Cleveland Clinic said Monday that the 26-year-old woman is recovering well after receiving the uterus late last month. The experimental surgery is part of a new frontier in transplantation that, if it works, might be an alternative for some of the thousands of women unable to have children because they were born without a uterus or lost it to disease.

The woman, identified only as Lindsey to protect her family’s privacy, appeared briefly at a news conference with her husband. She said she already is a mother to three “beautiful little boys” adopted through foster care and that she was told when she was 16 that she wouldn’t be able to bear children.

“From that moment on, I’ve prayed that God would allow me the opportunity to experience pregnancy,” she said. “And here we are today, at the beginning of that journey.”

The woman must wait at least a year to ensure the new uterus is healthy enough to try getting pregnant through in vitro fertilisation, using embryos frozen ahead of the operation. To monitor the transplant, she will undergo monthly examinations.

Other countries have tried womb transplants. Sweden reported the first successful birth in 2014, with a total of five healthy babies from nine transplants so far. The transplant team at the Cleveland Clinic, which has been exploring the possibility of performing uterus transplants for 10 years, trained with the Swedish surgeons.

The hospital has screened more than 250 women to identify 10 who qualify for the clinical trial, those lacking a functional uterus but with healthy ovaries that produce eggs. They must understand the risks — complications from abdominal surgery, plus the possibility that the transplant will fail — and that it’s experimental.