Baby born from dead donor womb transplant in UK first

I have read that there are some immunosuppressants that are apparently quite safe to use in pregnancy, and others that aren't. So I assume the woman would have to be on the safe ones or it wouldn't be an option.

As others have said, I think a lot more thought needs to be given to the children in this scenario. Effectively they have a whole family they have never met – a whole family history they may some day wish to know about. My husband’s father never knew his own father and, despite having been raised in a reasonably close-knit family, the mental health repercussions of that still live on with him at the age of 80 and have reverberated down the lives of the whole family - he was, for example, never able to form a proper relationship with his own sons. Some may argue that situation is not comparable but do we honestly know exactly how human attachment works?

Frankenstein baby? Hardly.

I can imagine it would be more upsetting to know that strangers who know very little about this, and nothing about their family, passing judgement on them?

Are you opposed to organ transplants in general?

Where do you draw the line?

I guess they'd feel sad about a miscarriage if that was the outcome - I'm not sure why they wouldn't run the risk of a miscarriage. Do you think they should feel differently about that risk than someone doing IVF?

If the baby survives (and I obviously hope it would) this or any other complications they may want another.
The drugs and their affect on the woman are lowest in the list of concerns here. A human is expected to grow inside this organ so it isn't the same as a kidney transplant.

I’m really uncomfortable with this.
I currently have opted in to being an organ donor but I will have to research how to make sure it’s only the body parts I want donated.

Wow, just wow to this thread.

I was diagnosed with kidney disease in my early 30s, went on dialysis in my mid 30s. Dialysis can keep you alive and relatively well for decades. However, id just got married and we desperately wanted children.

My best friend wanted to donate her kidney to me very specifically to enable me to have children (it isn’t recommended on dialysis).

I had my kidney transplant and two years later had DS1, followed 2 years later by DS2. Both born without complications, at full term and happy and healthy.

You can absolutely take immune suppressants throughout pregnancy with no harm to the baby.

Both boys aren’t aware they’re born into ‘medical chaos’ nor do they know they are ‘Frankenstein’ children. I’m wondering when I should tell them 🤔

They just know that their mummy needed help to have them and her good friend gave up part of her body to enable that to happen, and that’s why they have part of her name.

There are some weird takes on here

With a womb transplant as long as it lasts 9mths if the body starts to reject it the obvious answer is remove it rather than keep taking heavy drugs

Having a small part of your eye replaced is no way the same as having an organ inside your body and then trying to grow another human inside it.

Do you really think it matters to a child if the sperm met egg in a dish rather than a fallopian tube?
Its not exactly like you remember where the sperm & egg that made you met.

Exactly

This person is honestly not worth your time. There is so much ignorance around infertility. As someone who struggled with it for 5 years, I've heard every comment going. I just sigh and move on now, and am extremely grateful to modern medical science that I have my son.

Yes, and there could be cultural scenarios where 'freeing' women from reproduction would result in getting rid of women and girls all together...

The only dead part of the process that bothers me is the risk for the baby. Any transplant of internal organs is incredibly risky and then of course the drugs the recipient has to take, sometimes for life. You don't only have the woman's life to consider here, but the baby's too.
To liken it to a cornea transplant , as someone has in this thread, is completely ridiculous!!

I have to say, I do find it a little disturbing that it doesn't seem to require the dead woman's explicit consent regarding uterus transplantation? It's entirely up to her family? So a woman who is an organ donor but never even considered the idea of donating her uterus, and wouldn't have wanted to, could still end up with her uterus harvested against her will as her family may assume she would have been alright with it?

Or is there a specific thing you have to tick to say that yes, you're willing to donate your uterus?

Thats probably easier to say for some than others.
Some really struggle with infertility. And the grief for the baby that will never be.

If this is a solution for women. Then why not? Much better than surrogacy and biologically the child is the product of the actual parents. So not got the issues surrounding donor eggs / sperm / embryos

Well they wouldn’t exist without it so…?

wouldn’t ask a child who’s father only lived to be able to have them because they had a heart transplant from a dead donor how they felt about a Frankenstein father….

Do you think the same about babies who require organ transplants? Who’d want to be alive with Frankenstein-esque origins?

What's it to you though? The NHS aren't funding it. Do you feel the same way about other medical procedures that people self fund?

What a wonderful gift, praise to those who agreed to an unusual donation.

No one ever thinks about the baby / children in surrogacy / IVF / womb transplant or in fact just your common or garden pregnancy. It’s always and only about the adults.

A womb is just an organ.

"Frankenstein-esque" is a horrible way to describe it and if the child does grow to feel any way about it, it's because of the judgement of people like you.

Rather than collecting from ASDA, I think it’s more likely to be a Brave New World scenario.. Babies made in labs, early years in labs, owned and brought up by the state. No biological parenting required.

Organ transplants are normally given to prevent the recipient from dying. It isn't the same in this case at all
I have every sympathy for women who can't conceive, for a good while it looked like I couldn't. But this is way too risky and who is actually thinking about the baby? As always it's a secondary consideration, as with surrogacy.
Transplants are fraught with complications and often are rejected by the recipients body. Even if it was accepted by your body would you really run the risk of something happening with a baby inside. How would you forgive yourself if something went wrong and the baby died? Or would it be a case of blaming it in the Dr who performed the transplant?
Some Drs have a God complex and get ahead of themselves with the next ground breaking idea instead of pushing for better results in things that are already achievable.
There are children already in the world who are desperate for a loving home.