A Spanish woman donated her uterus to her daughter so that she might conceive her grandchildren through an innovative procedure that had only been given once in the world with successful results.
In the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona, Spainmother and daughter reached a milestone following undergoing the second uterus transplant in the worldthis following the woman might not conceive children.
The intervention took place on April 4, when Marilene González, gave the organ to her daughter Maira Montesa year and a half following the Barcelona center became the first in Spain to carry out this type of intervention.
in conversation with EFEthe young woman reported that she had known for years that she might not conceive children, which she had assumed, however, it was her partner who made her change her decision.
“Although I assumed over the years that it was not a problem for me, I did think that for the person who was there I might represent it,” Maira said.
“He told me no, that nothing was wrong, that it was not important […] In 2017 he went on a mission to Lebanon and there he realized that if he wanted to have children, that we both be parents”, he narrated.
Against this decided to investigate methods of conceiving children and that’s where they found a previous case of successful transplantation in Sweden. “I got really excited, but I always kind of held it in,” she said.
The uterus transplant
The uterus transplant took 18 hours and introduced some modification with respect to the first procedure, carried out in October 2020.
Eight days later, on April 12, Maira was released from the clinic. “On May 22, I had my period for the first time (since the procedure) and it was a bit shocking,” he recounted.
What remains now is to perform the embryo transferswhich will start in 6 more months from transplanttherefore, at the beginning of 2023, the first inseminations.
The doctors in charge of the procedure, Antonio Alcaraz, head of urology at the clinicy Francisco Carmona, head of gynecologyexplained that this procedure is “one of the most complex, only comparable to face transplants, with the difference that in these transplants there may be partial successes, not here”they said.
The surgery required seven professionals due to the technical difficulty of the procedure.
though for now Maira’s transplant has turned out to be a successthe previous intervention carried out in the same clinic in 2020 has not been so until now, since the recipient have not yet achieved a viable pregnancy.