The first baby born in the United States to a woman with a uterus transplant was delivered late last month in Dallas, Texas, marking a breakthrough in medical research, doctors announced Friday.
The boy's birth at Baylor University Medical Center marks a major milestone in a clinical trial that began last year, when a team of Dallas doctors became the first in the nation to complete uterine transplant surgeries using organs from deceased and living donors. Similar transplants and births have previously been successful in Sweden. But the Dallas baby's birth marks the first time the procedure has been successfully replicated elsewhere.
Four women received the womb transplants in 2016, Time magazine reported at the time, and one of those women gave birth last month via a scheduled C-Section.
“We’ve been preparing for this moment for a very long time,” Liza Johannesson, an ob-gyn and uterus transplant surgeon at Baylor, told Time, which first reported the birth. “I think everyone had tears in their eyes when the baby came out. I did for sure.”
The women who participated in Baylor's clinical trial last year have either nonfunctioning or nonexistent uteruses, and have lived most of their lives believing they would never be able to get pregnant, Time reported. So far, of the eight transplants completed by Baylor, at least three have failed.
Baylor confirmed to Time there is another woman in the trial who is pregnant, using a living donor uterus.
BREAKING: Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas Announces First Baby Born in United States to Mother Who Recei… https://t.co/f4tNQtPz83
The parents of the baby have chosen to remain anonymous, but the woman's uterus donor, Taylor Siler, is a registered nurse who lives in Dallas. She told Time she decided to donate after reading about Baylor's transplant program.
Siler, a mother of two boys, said she and her husband had decided to not have any more children.
“I have family members who struggled to have babies, and it’s not fair,” Siler told Time. “I just think that if we can give more people that option, that’s an awesome thing.”