Page 4 | Baby born after womb transplant

Wildflowers99 · 2025-04-07T19:40:14+00:00

[[https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/34329085/womb-transplant-baby-hope/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/health/34329085/womb-transplant-baby-hope/]] I’m not really sure how I feel about this. On one hand it all seems consensual and fine, and nice that they’re all happy. On the other it seems yet more expansion of surrogacy-type science, making pregnancy/babies a sort of human right that we should go to any lengths to make possible for people. And all the ethical/moral issues around that. What do you think?

Hermyknee · 07/04/2025 22:28

What are the risks of being on immunosuppressants during the pregnancy on the baby and mother?

blubberyboo · 07/04/2025 22:29

LoztWorld · 07/04/2025 22:18

Who is being exploited here? As with any organ transplant the donated organ will almost always come from a close family member, or perhaps someone who has died.

If you are concerned about people buying organs from poor people abroad, that risk is the same with wombs as it is with any other organ.

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Exploitation of humans has many forms.
Coercion and guilt tripping of family members. Human trafficking, exploiting poor people in ANY nation.

And you're right, any organ is fair game for this. But the point is that organ donation practices are open to abuse worldwide and the new technology of womb transplants just makes females that bit more unsafe around the world.

DisneyTokyoNewbie · 07/04/2025 22:29

NotMyDayJob · 07/04/2025 22:11

If the sister kept her ovaries, and I understand it was only the womb transplanted not the ovaries as well, then she shouldn’t have gone into menopause. I believe there’s a chance it can happen sooner but most likely you would go through menopause a standard age, like any woman who has a hysterectomy but keeps her ovaries

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Women who have had a partial hysterectomy leaving only ovaries tend to go into menopause earlier.

Lostmyusernametoday · 07/04/2025 22:29

EmeraldShamrock000 · 07/04/2025 21:11

I'm all for lifesaving organ donation, this is not lifesaving, it is amazing scientifically but is it necessary.

Interesting viewpoint, I hope you haven’t and don’t ever have fertility problems. If you have, it’s possible you might see it as life saving, just in a less direct way

NeverDropYourMooncup · 07/04/2025 22:30

Tuttifrutticutiepie · 07/04/2025 21:35

Actually, in most instances it is an older (even postmenopausal) woman in the recipients family, eg her mother or aunt who is the donor. There is no need for the womb to be taken from a woman who is herself in her fertile years.

An older woman beyond her reproductive years, donating an organ which is relatively redundant to her, so that her own immediate family can expand to her probable benefit and delight, does not strike me as particularly ethically concerning at all. This is altruistic donation to restore normal reproductive function. Regulated in the same way as all other human organ/tissue donation. Far more similar to altruistic kidney donation than it is to surrogacy or even egg donation.

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A possible consequence may be a small number of desperate people putting pressure on women along the lines of 'You'll go through major surgery with all of the risks connected to that to donate your womb, won't you? It's not as if you'll be needing it'. 'You don't want children/do not feel having a uterus matches your gender identity/find periods incredibly challenging due to neurodiversity. Donate your womb rather than hoard the means of production/free yourself'.

Plus the potential for a very lucrative trade that could target impoverished women who weren't young enough, fertile enough or able to countenance surrogacy. After all, if they're desperate enough to consider having babies, what if they're desperate enough to think this could solve problems relating to not wanting children of their own?

Women in many countries have also been sterilised against their will or without their knowledge. Add in a commercial interest in the organ concerned, and I believe that there will inevitably be some who have hysterectomies performed.

Living donors for a kidney or liver lobe are providing something that can save the life of the recipient at the risk of their own life. I do not have that much faith in humans on the whole to think that females in possession of a desired commodity will be kept safe.

legsekeven · 07/04/2025 22:31

LoztWorld · 07/04/2025 21:04

This is just like any other organ donation. It’s not commercial and it’s not likely to be, in the UK at least.

Its not exploiting a (usually impoverished) woman to carry a baby for a rich woman, or even to effectively sell her own baby in the cases where the surrogate’s own eggs are used.

It’s also unlikely to become a society-changing trend in the way surrogacy already is. We already see the beginnings of a two-tier society where rich and famous women outsource pregnancy to the poor because of their busy schedules and so on. Womb donors are going to be vanishingly few and far between and will be altruistically rather than commercially motivated - the same as any other organ donation. That’s if the womb comes from a living woman. Perhaps it is possible to use a womb from the dead, in which case there’s even less cause for concern.

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Very well put

DisneyTokyoNewbie · 07/04/2025 22:31

LoztWorld · 07/04/2025 22:18

Who is being exploited here? As with any organ transplant the donated organ will almost always come from a close family member, or perhaps someone who has died.

If you are concerned about people buying organs from poor people abroad, that risk is the same with wombs as it is with any other organ.

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Please research global organ harvesting and human trafficking.

DisneyTokyoNewbie · 07/04/2025 22:32

And the risk of trafficking for womb harvesting is a purely FEMALE problem. And will impact the most vulnerable women.

DisneyTokyoNewbie · 07/04/2025 22:34

Lostmyusernametoday · 07/04/2025 22:29

Interesting viewpoint, I hope you haven’t and don’t ever have fertility problems. If you have, it’s possible you might see it as life saving, just in a less direct way

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It's not life saving. Infertility is devastating. It's not life threatening. And your infertility should never put another woman at risk of death or illness.

luckybugger · 07/04/2025 22:37

Have just seen this on BBC news. The sisters look happy and level headed ,bloody good luck to them and their new family member.

PurpleChrayn · 07/04/2025 22:39

Technically it’s an implant if there wasn’t a womb there already.

legsekeven · 07/04/2025 22:39

whippy1981 · 07/04/2025 21:50

Traffickers will be rubbing their hands with glee!

why! It’s a very rare condition. Very few women will need a transplant

Pinkelephant66 · 07/04/2025 22:41

ExtraOnions · 07/04/2025 20:46

Men will be demanding them, as part of the delusion that they can become women.

Exactly. That’s what makes it so so worrying

whippy1981 · 07/04/2025 22:44

legsekeven · 07/04/2025 22:39

why! It’s a very rare condition. Very few women will need a transplant

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Infertility is not rare. It is rare not to have a uterus but it is common to have one that doesn't work. So this links to both.

Tuttifrutticutiepie · 07/04/2025 22:46

NeverDropYourMooncup · 07/04/2025 22:30

A possible consequence may be a small number of desperate people putting pressure on women along the lines of 'You'll go through major surgery with all of the risks connected to that to donate your womb, won't you? It's not as if you'll be needing it'. 'You don't want children/do not feel having a uterus matches your gender identity/find periods incredibly challenging due to neurodiversity. Donate your womb rather than hoard the means of production/free yourself'.

Plus the potential for a very lucrative trade that could target impoverished women who weren't young enough, fertile enough or able to countenance surrogacy. After all, if they're desperate enough to consider having babies, what if they're desperate enough to think this could solve problems relating to not wanting children of their own?

Women in many countries have also been sterilised against their will or without their knowledge. Add in a commercial interest in the organ concerned, and I believe that there will inevitably be some who have hysterectomies performed.

Living donors for a kidney or liver lobe are providing something that can save the life of the recipient at the risk of their own life. I do not have that much faith in humans on the whole to think that females in possession of a desired commodity will be kept safe.

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I agree that this is a possibility but the same is true of kidney donation and many altruistic kidney transplants are not lifesaving; they relieve the recipient of the burden of dialysis - which they could alternatively use to remain alive for years or decades.

Example A:
I donate a kidney to my adult daughter who is otherwise expected to survive on dialysis for many decades (and at the very least, could continue to wait for a posthumous donation), so that she is liberated from dialysis and is therefore healthy enough to undergo a pregnancy, albeit one under immunosuppression. I am partly motivated by my own desire to have a grandchild .

Example B:
I donate a uterus to my adult daughter, clearly not a lifesaving procedure but one which likewise allows her a pregnancy under immunosuppression and is partly motivated by my own desire for a grandchild.

Example C:
I commission a stranger to give up her baby to me in a commercial exchange.

I get that example A and B aren't identical but I think they are very similar. In both examples there are ethical considerations to be made and safeguards that must be in place but I really think this is a case of wombs feeling emotive because of other reproductive controversies including surrogacy which in every respect is altogether different. Someone above saying "this isn't like an organ transplant" when it very literally is not only "like" an organ transplant but is one. The definition of.

LibrariansGiveUsPower · 07/04/2025 22:51

Flutterbyby · 07/04/2025 21:21

They can want all they want, it's not physically possible

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It’s not physically possible at the moment.

I honestly can’t see why it would be impossible though. Very hard yes, but so is cloning sheep, so was IVF before it had first been done. So was separating conjoined twins.

I honestly can’t see why it couldn’t be achieved with a LOT of rerouting blood vessels, a lot of hormones, and of course a C-section delivery.

I’m not saying I’m for or against it, I’m just saying that it’s not outside the realms of possibility.

LillyPJ · 07/04/2025 22:51

I think we need to accept that not every woman can conceive and that having babies isn't a right. This just seems like a very expensive and time-consuming way to give one woman her own baby. I'm sure some people will disagree with me, but we all have disappointments in life and we have to learn to live with them. The medical profession is stretched enough already.

businessflop25 · 07/04/2025 22:51

Wildflowers99 · 07/04/2025 20:55

What’s the difference?

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Fuck me! Did you really just ask that? Holy crap! Do you know how fucking insensitive you are being to women like myself who have been forced into hysterectomies because of cancer! Causes in my case by over a decade of NHS incompetence!
And when a success story comes alone to help women like me individuals like you are like a dog with a bone and will do everything in your power to invalidate people like myself and our desires to have a family. Does it make you feel superior because you are blessed enough to have a functioning womb?

LibrariansGiveUsPower · 07/04/2025 22:53

DisneyTokyoNewbie · 07/04/2025 22:32

And the risk of trafficking for womb harvesting is a purely FEMALE problem. And will impact the most vulnerable women.

Why would they need to be trafficked? Hundreds of thousands of women have hysterectomies every year for a variety of reasons.

businessflop25 · 07/04/2025 22:53

LillyPJ · 07/04/2025 22:51

I think we need to accept that not every woman can conceive and that having babies isn't a right. This just seems like a very expensive and time-consuming way to give one woman her own baby. I'm sure some people will disagree with me, but we all have disappointments in life and we have to learn to live with them. The medical profession is stretched enough already.

I’m guessing you are one of the fortunate one who has been able to have children?

Come back when you know the fucking heartbreak of infertility!

nocoolnamesleft · 07/04/2025 22:55

LibrariansGiveUsPower · 07/04/2025 22:53

Why would they need to be trafficked? Hundreds of thousands of women have hysterectomies every year for a variety of reasons.

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Most women having hysterectomies do so because there is a problem with their uterus. It's pretty unusual to go through major surgery just to hoik out a perfectly healthy functioning organ.

Loofahdoofah · 07/04/2025 22:59

Brilliant. Such an act of love from her sister too.

This would turn my 30 yo MRKH daughter’s life around.

Imagine finding out about this as a 12 year old. A really cruel life event hitting directly at a child’s identity.

Sub fertility is painful - but for many there is some hope. Until this there was no hope of really having your own if you have been born with MRKH. (I know others can have your babies - but….. )

To the naysayers - how would you feel? Could you look my daughter in the face and deny her hope?

To those keyboard warriors banging on about men wanting one.
Too much re-plumbing would be needed.

Are there really that many who would want one?
It’s a poor and cruel reason to deny a person who could use one a chance of motherhood.

Icanhearabee · 07/04/2025 23:00

ExtraOnions · 07/04/2025 20:46

Men will be demanding them, as part of the delusion that they can become women.

This is what I told my husband when he was exclaiming what a miracle it was earlier.

Original poster

Wildflowers99 · 07/04/2025 23:01

businessflop25 · 07/04/2025 22:51

Fuck me! Did you really just ask that? Holy crap! Do you know how fucking insensitive you are being to women like myself who have been forced into hysterectomies because of cancer! Causes in my case by over a decade of NHS incompetence!
And when a success story comes alone to help women like me individuals like you are like a dog with a bone and will do everything in your power to invalidate people like myself and our desires to have a family. Does it make you feel superior because you are blessed enough to have a functioning womb?

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I see parallels with surrogacy, in asking another woman to take on a fairly significant health risk to enable you to have a baby. You’re more than twice as likely to die from a hysterectomy than you are by giving birth, so donating a womb is actually more dangerous than being a surrogate.

OP posts:

Superhansrantowindsor · 07/04/2025 23:03

No woman who yearned for a child and had no fertility problems can possibly comprehend what it feels like to be infertile. I was so fortunate that I had no problem conceiving and birthing my children so I won’t criticise the choices of those not as fortunate.