London - Five women who feared they would never give birth are in line to receive the first womb transplants in Britain as early as next year.
They have been selected by Richard Smith, a London consultant gynaecologist.
He is now applying for the relevant ethical approval from the government and hopes to begin the operations as soon as possible.
This follows the news that the first woman in the world to have the transplant is now six weeks pregnant. Derya Sert, 22, who was born without a womb, received the organ from a fatal crash victim in a seven-hour procedure in southern Turkey in 2011.
One of the five British women is 28-year-old Sophie Lewis, who was told at 16 that she could not deliver a baby naturally because she had no uterus.
Lewis, from Surbiton, Surrey, suffers from MRKH syndrome – a condition affecting one in 5 000 women – which restricts womb development.
“I’m really, really excited about this,” she said. “To be given this opportunity is such an amazing thing that I would go through everything and anything just to have the experience.
“If possible I would like three children but I’d be happy even with one. I’d be over the moon.”
She said of the moment when her GP warned she would never be a mother: “Everyone in school was getting periods and my mom was a bit concerned that I was not. I had a laparoscopy which confirmed I was born without a womb.
“At the age of 16, I don’t think I really took it in. Obviously I wasn’t at a stage of wanting children, so it didn’t really affect me. As I have got a lot older, people around me are having children and the feeling is a lot stronger.”
Lewis, who works for a credit ratings agency, has been with her 35-year-old partner Tilden Lamb for three years and they now feel ready to have a child together.
She said they were reluctant to try to adopt “as there is so much red tape”.
And although they could have a baby through surrogacy, they are worried that the surrogate mother might change her mind and want to keep the child.
“You are putting your trust in somebody you possibly don’t know for them to carry your child for nine months and then they finally give birth to the child who they can legally keep if they want to,” said Lewis.
The transplant operation would involve removing the healthy womb from a dead young woman who was a registered organ donor.
It would be overseen by Mr Smith, from Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea hospital and Imperial College. He said the procedure would take four to five hours.
“There are 60 women who have actually approached us wanting a transplant and fall within our eligibility criteria.”
All women wanting a transplant must first undergo IVF to prove their ovaries are capable of producing eggs to make an embryo.
There would be no point them undergoing the major operation only to find they were incapable of producing a child. Lewis and the other four transplant candidates will be given immuno-suppressant drugs to stop the body rejecting the new organ.
This will make them more vulnerable to infections but should not affect the development of the foetus. The baby will have to be delivered by caesarean section as the new tissue will not stand up to a natural labour.
Doctors also suspect the women will be at higher risk of complications, including miscarriage or premature birth. Once the patient has had the desired number of children, the womb will be removed and the drugs stopped to lessen the risk of infections.
Derya Sert was described as a “medical miracle” when she received the womb transplant almost two years ago.
Since then other women have undergone the procedure, but Sert is the first to become pregnant after being given IVF. Doctors at the Akdeniz University hospital in Antalya have just announced they have heard the healthy heartbeat of a foetus.
The medical team waited for 18 months before implanting an embryo into the transplanted womb, to give the pregnancy the greatest possible chance of survival. However, Sert still faces a high risk of miscarriage and other complications in the early stages of pregnancy. - Daily Mail