In 1896, Emil Knauer, a 29-year-old Austrian working in one of Vienna's gynecological clinics, published the first study of ovarian autotransplantation documenting normal function in a rabbit.
[3] In 2010 Diaz-Garcia and co-workers, at Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, University of Gothenburg in Sweden, demonstrated the world's first successful allogenic uterus transplantation, in a rat, with healthy offspring.
While sex reassignment surgery can create a vagina for these women, the option of a uterus is unavailable to them, meaning they cannot carry a pregnancy and would need to take other routes to parenthood, whether it be a more traditional approach involving coitus or an alternative one such as adoption, egg donation, or a gestational carrier.
[11] The first incidence of a uterine transplant involving a deceased donor occurred in Turkey on 9 August 2011; the surgery, performed by Ömer Özkan and Munire Erman Akar, at the Akdeniz University Hospital in Antalya, on Derya Sert, a 21-year-old patient who'd been born without a uterus.
[12][13][14][15][16][17] In this case, the patient enjoyed long-term success with the transplanted uterus, experiencing periods and, two years post-surgery, pregnancy.
[18][19][20] During that pregnancy, Sert underwent an abortion in her first trimester, after her doctor was unable to detect a fetal heartbeat, but this is a common complication and may not have been related to the transplant.
[23][24][25] In October 2014, it was announced that, for the first time, a healthy baby had been born to a uterine transplant recipient, at an undisclosed location in Sweden.
The British medical journal The Lancet reported that the baby boy had been born in September, weighing 1.8 kg (3.9 lb) and that the father had said his son was "amazing".
The Swedish woman, aged 36, had received a uterus in 2013, from a live 61-year-old donor, in an operation led by Brännström, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Gothenburg.
[32] The birth occurred at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, by Drs Liza Johannesson and Giuliano Testa, after a uterus donation from a non-directed living donor.
[35][36] India's first uterine transplant baby, weighing 1.45 kg, was delivered through a Caesarean section[37] at Galaxy Care Hospital in Pune in October 2018.
[39] The first uterine transplant performed in Brazil took place on 2016 at the Hospital das Clínicas da USP in São Paulo.
[35] Brazil's first uterine transplant baby was delivered through a Caesarean section[37] at Hospital das Clínicas da USP in December 2017.
[39] In Spain, the first uterine transplant was performed in October 2020, at the Hospital Clínico de Barcelona, with two sisters as donor and recipient.
[43] Prof Richard Smith, a gynaecological surgeon who led the organ retrieval team, has spent 25 years researching womb transplantation, said that the surgery was a "massive success".
Kristy Bryant received the uterus in January 2023 at the Royal Hospital for Women in Sydney, and fell pregnant within three months through embryo transfer.
[57] Endometrial preparation: One to two months after transplantation, the lining of the new uterus begins to thicken and shed in a cyclical manner, and menstruation occurs.
A late complication of uterine transplant, which typically occurs several months after the procedure, is vaginal stricture over the suture line, which may affect up to 72% of recipients.
Over time, during the healing process, this area can form excessive scar tissue that narrows the vaginal canal and reduces the flexibility and diameter of the vagina, causing stenosis.
[58] Side effects of immunosuppressants: Weaker immune system (increased risk of contracting diseases), renal and hepatic toxicity, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, long-term cancer.