A woman born without a uterus successfully gave birth in February after undergoing the UK’s first womb transplant, according to international media reports.
Grace Davidson, 36, and her 37-year-old husband, Angus, welcomed baby Amy Isabel, named after Davidson’s sister Amy, on February 27. The new arrival weighed in at only 4.5lb.
Amy underwent an eight-hour operation in 2023 to donate her womb to her sister.
The family has since told the media that baby Amy is “the greatest gift we could ever have asked for.”After learning as a teenager that she was born without a uterus, Davidson shared that “It was just hard to believe she was real. I knew she was ours, but it’s just hard to believe.”
While Davidson always held “a quiet hope” that the transplant may be fruitful, she told media that “it wasn’t really until she arrived that the reality of it sunk in.”
Angus Davidson said the moment his daughter arrived was very emotional. He said: “Having waited such a long time, it’s kind of odd getting your head around that this is the moment where you are going to meet your daughter.
“The room was full of people who have helped us on the journey to actually having Amy. We had been kind of suppressing emotion, probably for 10 years, and you don’t know how that’s going to come out – ugly crying, it turns out!
“The room was just so full of love and joy, and all these people had a vested interest in Amy for incredible medical and scientific reasons. But the lines between that and the love for our family and for Amy are very much blurred – it felt like a room full of love.
“The moment we saw her was incredible, and both of us just broke down in emotional tears.”
The science that enabled baby Amy
Since Davidson’s transplant, three more British women have undergone the surgery using the wombs of deceased donors. Ten more women are in the process of being approved for the procedure, the Guardian reported.The surgery is currently priced at £25,000 (approx NIS 121,640).
The birth of baby Amy followed 25 years of research by Prof Richard Smith, the clinical lead at the charity Womb Transplant UK. He told PA media, “I feel great joy actually, unbelievable – 25 years down the line from starting this research, we finally have a baby, little Amy Isabel. Astonishing, really astonishing.”
“There’s been a lot of tears shed by all of us in this process – really quite emotional, for sure. It is really something,” he added.
Baby Amy’s arrival follows that of Baby Vincent, the first child born after a womb transplant in 2014.