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She was born without a womb. And she just gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

(Note: This is a stock image.)

 

 

 

It’s a (scientific) miracle.

A woman born without a uterus – who says she “never thought” she’d be a mother – has given birth.

The 36-year-old competitive athlete gave birth to a healthy baby boy in Sweden last month, according to medical journal The Lancet.

The woman, who received a womb transplant from a 61-year-old, post-menopausal friend, is the first in the world to have a baby boy after having such a transplant.

The ABC is reporting that Vincent was delivered by caesarean section last month at Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska Academy — and was perfectly healthy, despite being born prematurely at only 1.775 kilograms.

Both mother and baby were discharged after 10 days in hospital.

“I have always had this large sorrow because I never thought I would be a mother. And now the impossible has become real,” the mother said, as reported by The Guardian.

“As soon as I felt this perfect baby boy on my chest, I had tears of happiness and enormous relief,” she said. “I felt like a mother the first time I touched my baby and was amazed that we finally did it.”

Doctors at Gothenburg’s Sahlgrenska Academy. (Screenshot via The Telegraph.)

The new mother was part of a fertility project at the University of Gothenburg that is helping women without uteruses to receive transplants from living donors.

The women’s own embryos are transplanted via IVF – and Vincent’s mother, who had a rare genetic condition that meant she was born without a womb but with ovaries intact, was implanted with an embryo created from her own egg and sperm from her partner.

According to The Daily Mail, Professor of obstetrics and gynaecology Mats Brannstrom delivered Vincent. He said the success of the procedure was”still sinking in”.

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“When the baby came out… it screamed almost immediately and that is a good time that the baby’s doing fine, of course that was fantastic happiness,” he told The Telegraph.

“We really couldn’t believe that we had reached this moment,” he said.

While the birth is being hailed as a breakthrough for infertile women, Dr Brannstrom said it would take a while for the procedure to be carried out more widely.

“I have always had this large sorrow because I never thought I would be a mother. And now the impossible has become real,” the new mother said.

“This is not going to be routine clinical care or routine surgery for many many years,” he said.

But The Telegraph reports he said womb transplants could eventually be offered to a much wider group of women who have lost their womb – for example, after suffering cancer or complications after birth.

Eight other women received transplants in the experimental study, resulting in six viable pregnancies.

“I expect most of our patients will be able to deliver babies,” Dr Braanstrom told The Telegraph.

Many are hoping the success in Sweden will lead the way for similar procedures elsewhere. Richard Smith, a consultant gynaecologist at London’s Hammersmith Hospital, told The Daily Mail he has plans for a similar study in the United Kingdom.

“We have known for some time that it is possible to successfully transplant a womb. But the big unknown has been whether it is possible for that womb to safely carry a baby. Now we know it can,” he said.

The Guardian reports the transplant operation took 10 hours to complete, and the woman had to take three types of drug to stop her body from rejecting the new organ.

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