Chinese doctors carry the country's first womb transplant
Print Edition
Chinese doctors have carried out the country’s first uterus transplant, with the patient receiving a womb donated by her mother, a hospital in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province said yesterday.
It said the procedure would give hope to more women struggling with infertility.
“This is China’s first human womb transplant. Currently, the donor and recipient are in good condition,” said Li Xiaokang, deputy head of Xi’an’s Xijing Hospital, where the surgery was performed.
Thirty-eight surgeons took part in the operation, which lasted for around 14 hours.
A robot assisted in removing the mother’s uterus before doctors transplanted it into the daughter’s body, said Chen Biliang, director of the hospital’s gynecology and obstetrics department.
After the daughter recovers, doctors will transfer frozen fertilized embryos into the new womb, allowing her to carry her own biological child. The embryos were created by the daughter and her husband using in-vitro fertilization prior to the transplant.
The woman, 22, was born without a uterus but has her own ovaries and can make eggs. Her mother is 43.
Doctors had prepared for the surgery for two years, practicing the technique on goats, which are believed to share similar wombs with humans, Chen said.
Uterus transplants are not new. In the 1960s, Britain and the United States began to experiment with uterus transplants on animals.
In 2000, the world’s first human womb transplant took place on a 26-year-old woman in Saudi Arabia. However, the transplanted uterus failed after three months and had to be removed.
In 2011, doctors successfully performed a uterus transplant on a woman in Turkey. Two years later, nine women in Sweden successfully received transplanted wombs donated by relatives.
However, public opinion on such transplants is divided.
“Womb transplants can provide an alternative for women unable to have their own children due to problems,” said Chen, adding that using a surrogate to carry a pregnancy is not allowed in China.
Infertility problems
In 2001, China’s health authorities issued a regulation to ban the practice in order to reduce the huge black market for underground surrogacy.
Chen said 8 percent of infertility in women is caused by womb problems. It is estimated that 100,000 to 120,000 girls in China are born without a functional vagina or uterus each year.
But some critics of the practice argue that the surgery is a complicated and risky procedure that is not aimed at saving life but improving the quality of it.
With the successful transplant in China, some online commentators called for men to receive such transplants to replace women in giving birth.
“It is good news for women if their husbands can give birth. Men should experience the pain and happiness of child birth, so they can better understand their wives,” user “crosshands” commented on her Weibo account.
Chen confirmed that men had visited him to ask about similar gender reassignment surgery in recent years.
“It could be possible to transfer a womb into a man’s body after surgery and drug therapy,” she said.
Currently, China has no laws or regulation on womb transplants for men.
“Undoubtedly it will raise more healthy, ethical and legal concerns,” said Liu Liang, an expert on medical ethics at Xijing hospital.
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