Woman has baby after womb transplant

A 36-year-old Swede has become the world's first woman to give birth after receiving a womb transplant, medical journal The Lancet said on Saturday.

The baby boy was born last month, it said, describing the event as a breakthrough for infertile women. Both mother and baby are doing well.

The baby, weighing 1.775 kilos (3.9 pounds), was born by Caesarean section at 31 weeks after the mother developed pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy condition, it said.

The woman had a genetic condition that meant she was born without a womb but her ovaries were intact.

The replacement organ came from a 61-year-old woman, a family friend who had been through menopause seven years earlier. The organ was transplanted in an operation last year.

The recipient underwent in-vitro fertilisation, in which eggs were harvested from her ovaries and fertilised, and then cryogenically preserved.

A year after the transplant, a single early-stage embryo was inserted into the transplanted womb. A pregnancy test three weeks later was positive.

"Our success is based on more than 10 years of intensive animal research and surgical training by our team and opens up the possibility of treating many young females worldwide that suffer from uterine infertility," the British journal quoted Professor Matts Braennstroem of the University of Gothenburg, who led the operation, as saying.

"What is more, we have demonstrated the feasibility of live-donor uterus transplantation, even from a post-menopausal donor."