Woman Becomes First to Successfully Give Birth After Uterus Transplant
An Alabama woman born without a uterus gave birth to a healthy baby boy in May after a first-of-its-kind uterus transplant at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medicine.
Several women have received uterus transplants across the world, but Mallory is the first to give birth outside of a clinical trial, the hospital said this week. Her last name was not mentioned for privacy reasons.
“Our goal and dream for this program is to make this routine for women who want to experience pregnancy and childbirth but can’t for a variety of health reasons,” said Dr. Anupam Agarwal, senior vice president for medicine at the hospital.
At age 17, Mallory said she was diagnosed with a rare condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome. Born without a uterus, she said doctors told her that she would never be able to have her own children, according to Eyewitness News 7.
“I had come to terms with knowing that, OK, I won’t be able to carry my own children; but for me, it always felt like something that was lacking,” she said.
Seeking other options, she and her husband, Nick, had their first child through a surrogate, Mallory’s sister. But the family wanted another child, and Mallory said she did not want to ask her sister again.
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Then, they found the uterus transplant program at University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), one of four in the United States.
Almost two years ago, Mallory underwent a successful uterus transplant at the hospital and, about nine months later, conceived a baby boy through in vitro fertilization, according to the hospital.
Her son was born in May.
Remembering that day, Mallory said: “I mean just hearing the cry at first was just, you know, mind blowing. … it just felt so surreal, it was full circle. We did it.”
Doctors at UAB eventually hope uterus transplants will become a standard of care for women suffering from infertility.
Dr. Paige Porrett, director of UAB’s Comprehensive Transplant Institute, said the process is very complex and requires teams of doctors from many different specialties, but she is optimistic that uterine transplants could become more widely available in the future.
“Women’s health and reproductive medicine is really about making sure there are options for women,” Porrett said in a statement. “Babies being born is always a special event, and I’m using some strong words here, but I think of these as our miracle babies.”
Her team at UAB currently is providing care to several women who want or recently underwent uterus transplants, and a few of them are pregnant, according to the hospital.
Mallory said she will be forever grateful to Porrett and UAB for giving her the opportunity to become pregnant with her son.
“Even through some of the tough stuff, I really embraced pregnancy as I knew it would be the only time I was going to be able to do it, and I knew how lucky I was to be able to experience it,” she said. “Sharing that journey with our daughter was so special, too, with her being able to feel my belly. I just had so much gratitude to experience this.”
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