London - Surgeons are to be allowed to perform life-changing womb transplants in the UK for the first time.
Ten British women could immediately benefit from a pioneering project given the green light on Tuesday night.
It could eventually allow thousands to achieve their dream of motherhood. The first UK baby could be born in 2017 and womb transplants made widely available to childless women shortly afterwards.
Project leader Richard Smith, of Imperial College London, said it offers a “ray of light” for 50 000 women of child-bearing age who were born without a womb or had it removed due to illnesses such as cancer.
Smith, who has spent 19 years researching and perfecting the technique, said: “Seeing the mother holding the first baby will be remarkable.”
One potential patient, Sophie Lewis, 30, told the Daily Mail: “To be able to carry my own child would be an amazing gift.”
Professor Allan Pacey, a leading fertility doctor, said: “It feels like the first heart transplant. It’s not life-saving but it’s life-changing and it feels like we are at a moment in history. If really takes off, it will revolutionise the way we treat women with these womb problems.”
Smith, an award-winning surgeon and head of charity Womb Transplant UK, has been given permission by an ethics committee at the Royal Free Hospital in North West London to perform ten womb transplants. The £50 000 operations will be carried out on women who were born without a uterus, or who have had a hysterectomy due to womb cancer or as a last-ditch attempt to stop a threatening bleed while in labour.
More than 100 women have already been deemed suitable and are hoping they will be follow the four Swedish patients who have given birth following the world’s first successful womb transplants.
A transplant will give them a baby that is genetically their own while allowing them to experience the joy of pregnancy.
The women, to be chosen in the next three to four months, will be between 24 and 38, healthy and in long-term relationships. In some cases, women up to the age of 40 will be considered. All still have ovaries and so will have eggs of their own.
Each new womb will come from a donor left brain dead by a car crash, heart defect or other illness. It will be removed in a three-hour operation before being transplanted in a six-hour procedure.
It will then be allowed to ‘bed in’ for a year before IVF is carried out. If the woman becomes pregnant, the baby will be delivered by Caesarean section, to spare the new womb the strain of labour.
The recipient will be taking immunosuppressants and while she may decide to have a second baby, her new womb will then be removed to limit her exposure to the drugs.
Two womb transplant attempts failed before project in Sweden. Seven of the nine transplants done in the Gothenburg University project have worked. Four of these women have had babies and a fifth is on the way. This success rate is much higher than normal IVF and Smith hopes to emulate it here in the UK. He has been given detailed guidance by the Swedish team and is preparing to do the first operation in March.A further four are planned next year and five more in 2017.
Smith acknowledges that the transplant is not without risks but says that some women are so heartbroken by their infertility that they will believe they are worth taking.
He has raised enough money for first operation but still needs £450 000 to do the others.
He said: “In many women, there is a deep yearning to carry children and this is not fulfilled by surrogacy. I’ve had my own crisis with this project over the years, are we doing the right thing? But when you meet women in this position, I know in my heart of hearts that if we do it safely, it is the right thing.”
Professor Geeta Nargund, medical director of Create St Pauls in London, Europe’ s biggest IVF clinic, said: “Bringing womb transplants to the UK and helping British women is a great thing. I congratulate Richard Smith’s team for getting ethics approval and wish them every success.”
Professor Adam Balen, chairman of the British Fertility Society, said: “At my clinic I see women of all ages who were born without a womb and for them the only option is surrogacy, which is no small undertaking. It is immensely exciting and very important that womb transplants are potentially being offered in the UK and we wholeheartedly support it.”
Daily Mail