UK’s first womb transplant baby born in medical breakthrough
It was the first time the procedure had taken place in the UK. The birth will give hope to thousands of women born without a womb.
A baby girl has become the first child in the UK to be born from a womb transplant.
Grace Davidson, who received the transplant in 2023, said the birth of her daughter Amy Isabel was the "greatest gift we could ever have asked for".
The 36-year-old, from north London, received the donated womb from her older sister, Amy.
It was the first time the procedure had taken place in the UK, and the birth will give hope to thousands of women born without a womb - like those with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome - or whose womb fails to function.
Amy Isabel was named after her aunt, and a surgeon who helped perfect the technique, and was born by planned caesarean section on 27 February at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in London.
Mrs Davidson, an NHS dietitian, said she felt "shock" when she first held her daughter, adding: "We have been given the greatest gift we could ever have asked for.
"It was just hard to believe she was real. I knew she was ours, but it’s just hard to believe.
"It sort of feels like there’s a completeness now where there maybe wasn’t before."
Her husband Angus, 37, said: "The moment we saw her was incredible, and both of us just broke down in emotional tears - it’s hard to describe, it was elation.
"It had been such a long wait. We’d been intending to have a family somehow since we were married, and we’ve kind of been on this journey for such a long time."
Rare condition affects one in 5,000 women
Mrs Davidson was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser, a rare condition that affects around one in every 5,000 women. It means they have an underdeveloped or missing womb.
However, the ovaries are intact and still function to produce eggs and female hormones, making conceiving via fertility treatment a possibility.
Grace with her sister Amy (right) and daughter. Pic: Womb Transplant UK/PA
How the procedure worked
Before receiving the donated womb, Mrs Davidson and her husband underwent fertility treatment to create seven embryos, which were frozen for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) in central London.
Mrs Davidson had surgery in February 2023 to receive the womb from her 42-year-old sister Amy Purdie, who is a mother to two girls aged 10 and six.
Several months later, one of the stored embryos was transferred via IVF to Mrs Davidson.
The baby weighed 4.5lbs and was delivered several weeks early to ensure a safe, hospital-based delivery.
Ms Purdie called the birth of her niece "worth every moment".
’We’ve waited a very, very long time for this’
Professor Richard Smith and Isabel Quiroga were the lead surgeons for the womb transplant and both were in the operating theatre when Amy was delivered, with her parents choosing her middle name in honour of Ms Quiroga.
Prof Smith, clinical lead at the charity Womb Transplant UK and consultant gynaecological surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, told Sky News that being in the operating theatre when Amy was delivered was "really quite remarkable".
The medic said: "We’ve waited a very, very long time for this, and there’s been quite a lot of tears shed. Ironically the scariest bit of the day for me was when [Amy’s] mum and dad asked me to hold their baby, which was incredible."
Ms Quiroga, consultant surgeon at the Oxford Transplant Centre, part of Oxford University Hospitals, told Sky News it was "quite a complex procedure" and "the pressure was immense when we did the transplant".
But she said it was "totally amazing to see all that effort" and it has "been totally worth it".
Deputy Editor
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