Wednesday came to the world the first baby born after a uterus transplant between homozygous twins, a dream that seemed impossible but has come true.
The protagonists of the story are two sisters of 38 years of Serbian origin living in Italy. One of them was born without a uterus due to a congenital malformation and her sister in a beautiful gesture, after having had three children, he decided to donate the uterus to his twin. The baby was born by caesarean section at the Hospital Santa Orsola in Bologna, Italy, and weighed just under three kilos.
One of them was born without a uterus
The woman who received the organ was born without a uterus due to a congenital anomaly. It is believed that women suffer from Rokitansky syndrome or MRKH (Mayer Rokitansky Küster Hauser), a congenital malformation characterized by the absence of a vagina, uterus and cervix.
Those who suffer from this anomaly, which affects one in 4,500 women, have ovaries that function normally and will experience the normal signs of puberty, but do not have menstruation and cannot conceive.
Perfect compatibility
In March 2017 the transplant was carried out at the Belgrade Pediatric University Hospital by a specialized medical team by the Swedish professor Mats Brännström, Director of the FIV Stockholm Clinic (Eugin Group) and pioneer of the uterus transplant technique.
In addition to being the world's first uterus transplant among twins, another curiosity and advantage of this case is that, being homozygous or monozygotic twins (also called identical twins), an immunosuppressive therapy was not necessary, something essential in other types of transplants .
This is because they have identical genetic inheritance and perfect compatibility between donor and recipient.
After the transplant, the woman traveled to Stockholm to perform a procedure of in vitro fertilization using a cryopreserved or frozen embryo of her and her husband. According to Bologna Today, the transplant and fertilization procedure would have cost around fifty thousand euros.
Worldwide, 40 uterus transplants have been attempted so far, and 12 of them resulted in the birth of a baby. In Spain it is a practice that is not yet authorized by the National Transplant Organization (ONT).
