For the second time in the U.S., a woman with a uterus transplanted from a deceased donor has given birth to a healthy baby.
The birth took place in November 2019 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. A 33-year-old woman gave birth to a boy, who grew inside a uterus that the woman received as part of an organ transplant research trial more than a year earlier. He was delivered via cesarean section.
The woman, Jennifer Gobrecht, was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, a condition that left her with functional ovaries but not a fully formed uterus.
She joined Penn Medicine's uterus transplantation trial, launched in 2017, and received a uterus transplanted from a deceased donor in 2018 in a procedure that took 10 hours.
"While there are still many unknowns about uterus transplantation, we know now — as evidenced by Jen and baby Benjamin — that this is potentially a viable option for some women," said Kathleen O'Neill, MD, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology in the Perelman School of Medicine at Penn and co-principal investigator of the trial.
Researchers are continuing to enroll patients in the trial, which aims to further knowledge of organ transplantation, female reproductive biology and pregnancy.
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