The United Kingdom has made medical history with doctors carrying out the country’s first womb transplant.
The woman’s sister was the living womb donor.
According to The Guardian on Wednesday, the unidentified 34-year-old married recipient from England underwent a nine-hour transplant procedure.
The married woman was born with a rare condition, meaning her original womb was underdeveloped. She received a donor womb from her 40-year-old sister, who already had two children of her own.
“It was incredible. I think it was probably the most stressful week in my surgical career but also unbelievably positive,” Richard Smith, the lead surgeon for the operation, told the UK’s Press Association.
“The donor and recipient are over the moon, just over the moon.”
The recipient of the womb, also called a uterus, was diagnosed with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH), a rare condition that impacts women’s reproductive systems.
