Although this is an exceptional case, unique in the world, it will undoubtedly open the door to the hope of many women and doctors will continue to make progress in this regard. A 23-year-old Turkish woman has become the first recipient of a uterus transplant who has managed to get pregnant.
A team from the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Akdeniz, in the city of Antalya, managed to implant an embryo in the uterus that was transplanted to the patient in August 2011. According to the University Hospital, the implantation was carried out two weeks ago and so far the pregnancy has evolved normally.
It is too early to know if the pregnancy will come to fruition, but we hope to be able to give the happy news of the birth of the baby in a few months. Until a healthy child is born from this type of operation, one cannot speak of total success.
We already announced this possibility some time ago, in that case it was a mother who donated her uterus to her 25-year-old daughter. But this transplant is an operation that remains unusual: very few women have successfully undergone a uterus transplant.
And in this case we would be before the first pregnancy achieved after the uterus transplant: Derya Sert is the first woman to receive a uterus transplant from a dead donor. Before the transplant, the doctors removed and frozen the ovules of the patient, with the anticipation of being implanted after the operation.
The patient was affected by congenital uterovaginal agenesis or Rokitansky syndrome, a condition that involves a lack of uterus and vagina in varying degrees. The patient had her vagina reconstructed in a previous operation.
Before the uterus transplant, the doctors underwent two cycles of ovarian stimulation and several oocytes were removed. Derya Sert's ovules were fertilized in vitro with her husband's spermatozoa, and they were frozen waiting to be implanted in the future.
In the end, now, an embryo has been implanted. This unique fact in the world of a pregnancy after a uterus transplant It will be followed with enormous attention by doctors from all over the world.
In my opinion, the biggest problem for this new way to break through is that the current economic crisis situation will prioritize other types of transplants and operations that save patient lives, and not these cases that involve many risks.
