A businesswomen based in Britain is in line to become the first person in the world to donate her womb to her daughter.
Eva Ottosson, 56, agreed to help her 25-year-old daughter Sara, who was born without reproductive organs.
If doctors go ahead as planned with the procedure next year, Sara could carry a baby in the same womb in which she was conceived and developed.
Mrs Ottosson, a Swede who runs a lighting firm in Nottingham, said: “My daughter and I are both very rational people and we both think, ‘It’s just a womb’.
“She needs the womb and, if I’m the best donor for her, well, go on. She needs it more than me. I’ve had two daughters so it’s served me well.”
Miss Ottosson said she was relaxed about taking part in the pioneering operation in her Swedish homeland.
“I’m a biology teacher and it’s just an organ like any other organ,” she said.
“But my mom did ask me about this. She said, ‘Isn’t it weird?’ And my answer is ‘No’. I’m more worried that my mom is going to have a big operation.”
Miss Ottosson, who lives and works in Stockholm, has Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser syndrome, which means she was born without a uterus and parts of her vagina.
The cause of the condition, which affects one in 5,000 women, is unknown. She only realised there was a problem when she failed to start having periods as a teenager.
If the complex transplant is a success and her body does not reject the foreign tissue, she can try for a family by having her eggs fertilised via IVF with her boyfriend’s sperm.
Any embryos would then be put into the transplanted womb in the hope they would implant and develop into a baby.
“It would mean the world to me for this to work and to have children,” Miss Ottosson told the Daily Telegraph.
“I am trying not to get my hopes up so that I am not disappointed. But we have also been thinking about adoption for a long time and if the transplant fails, then we will try to adopt.”
A 26-year-old woman received a womb from a 46-year-old donor in Saudi Arabia in 2000.
But the recipient, who lost her uterus after a haemorrhage, developed complications and it was removed three months later.
Since then, specialists have carried out similar operations on animals. Doctors in Gothenburg now believe a procedure on a human will be successful.
They have selected ten pairs of Swedish women as candidates following physical and psychological tests.
The doctors plan to perform the first operation as early as next spring. Most of the patients are mothers and daughters, the majority of whom have MRKH syndrome.
Of the others, one lost her uterus giving birth and another suffered cervical cancer.
The donor’s womb would be removed in a four-hour operation similar to a hysterectomy.
It would then be transplanted into the recipient, who will have to take a variety of drugs to avoid rejection of the organ.
She will only be cleared for IVF treatment after a year.
Any babies would be delivered by Caesarean section to minimise complications.
Dr Mats Brannstrom, team leader at Sahlgrenska University Hospital, said: “Technically, it is a lot more difficult than transplanting a kidney, liver or heart.
“The difficulty is avoiding haemorrhage and making sure you have long enough blood vessels to connect the womb.” - Daily Mail