For the first time in the United States, a woman who had a uterus transplant has given birth.
The mother, who was born without a uterus, received the transplant from a living donor last year at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, and had a baby boy there last month…
Since 2014, eight other babies have been born to women who had uterus transplants, all in Sweden, at the Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg.
A new frontier, uterus transplants are seen as a source of hope for women who cannot give birth because they were born without a uterus or had to have it removed because of cancer, other illness or complications from childbirth. Researchers estimate that in the United States, 50,000 women might be candidates.
The transplants are meant to be temporary, left in place just long enough for a woman to have one or two children, and then removed so she can stop taking the immune-suppressing drugs needed to prevent organ rejection.
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The transplants are now experimental, with much of the cost covered by research funds. But they are expensive, and if they become part of medical practice, will probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is not clear that insurers will pay, and [Dr. Giuliano Testa, principal investigator of the research project] acknowledged that many women who want the surgery will not be able to afford it.
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