A baby girl has made history as the first in the UK to be born from a womb transplant, after her aunt donated her uterus to her mother, a London hospital announced on Tuesday.
The baby, named Amy, was born on February 27 at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in London, two years after her mother, Grace Davidson, received the womb transplant from her older sister.
Grace, who was born without a functioning womb due to a rare condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome, expressed her gratitude, saying, "We have been given the greatest gift we could ever have asked for." She hopes that womb transplants can become a more common option for women unable to carry their own children.
"I hope that going forward, this could become a wonderful reality, and provide an additional option for women who would otherwise be unable to carry their own child," Grace added.
Her husband, Angus Davidson, spoke emotionally about the long journey. "The room was full of people who have helped us on the journey to actually having Amy," he said, recalling how they had "been kind of suppressing emotion" for years, resulting in a moment of overwhelming joy.
The womb transplant took place in February 2023 at the Oxford Transplant Centre, part of Oxford University Hospitals Foundation, and was the first of its kind in the UK. Amy Purdie, 42, Grace’s sister, generously donated her uterus for the procedure. Amy, who has two daughters, aged 10 and six, was able to give her sister the chance to experience motherhood.
Professor Richard Smith, a consultant gynaecological surgeon and co-leader of the UK living donor programme, described Amy's birth as the "culmination of over 25 years of research."
Womb transplants have now been carried out in over 100 cases worldwide since the first successful procedure in Sweden in 2013, leading to the birth of around 50 healthy babies.
