Baby born from dead donor womb transplant in UK first

[IwantToRetire]

Commisseration and support for the family of the woman who died, and happy for the new mother.

But feel sort of uneasy about this.

https://news.sky.com/story/simply-a-miracle-baby-boy-born-from-dead-donor-womb-transplant-in-uk-first-13511093

Gross.

Again, I didn't mention adoption or say it was a cure for infertility.

Elaborate on how a voluntary womb transplant is comparable to a life-saving major organ transplant?

But the womb is just the space for the baby to grow. I honestly don’t know why that makes you feel uncomfortable. Or why any child born via a transplanted womb should feel any less connected to their mother and father.

@JustGotToKeepOnKeepingOn because it came out of a dead body and the baby is growing IN that. Gives me the creeps, sorry!

I've got some sympathy for your second point, but I can't accept "the womb is just the space for the baby to grow".
The conception and gestation of a baby is amazingly complex. People feel how they feel, it's deep, relating to life and death, fundamental symbiotic relationships between mother and child, actually creating new life - our own origin, as everyone was made in this way. All of us had a mother, in whose womb we once grew. While it is an ordinary occurrence, it's still extraordinary, and I imagine people feeling protective of their wombs, with all of that potential within the body.

The confidence in the organ transplant being automatically life-saving is unfortunately misplaced. A close relative of mine had an organ transplant that failed, and they died during the operation. Another relative of mine suffered from infertility and was unable to conceive despite several rounds of IVF, which was absolutely searing. Unfortunately, their infertility was also linked to a genetic condition associated with cancer, so they did not live long enough to be able to have a baby.
Every day tragedies, if you like.

I suspect the 'science' will eventually get 'there.'

I've had many women say they'd happily loan/give me (a woman not born as such) their uterus, including my mother. Just because you lot are terminally focused on gametes doesn't mean the rest of the world shares your vision.

Science is a wonderful thing. The womb is an organ, very few consider it to be the 'vessel of the divine female.'

Oh yes, some women will bend over backwards to make a male happy. Very sad.

I suspect we'll be growing fetuses in labs before we manage to put a working uterus in a man, but it's nice that you have hope.

For me, everyone knew it was impossible, but the jokes and offers were appreciated. Thankfully there were no barriers preventing us from adopting.

I have hope for the future.

I know two people who died after transplants, one was the wife of my brother who needed a liver transplant after fertility treatment. She died ten days after the surgery. This was in the early 90s and I'm sure fertility treatment and transplant surgery/medication has moved on since then and got better but there are still risks involved in both. I just wish people wouldn't have this blind belief in medical advances being always good developments.
The other was a colleague of mine who needed a new heart after a heart attack. Both cases happened in countries with very good healthcare systems.

It’s an organ that ONLY women and girls have.
It’s an organ that can be removed while the donor is alive.
For me, that raises far too many risks of young women/ girls being paid and coerced into donating their wombs to rich women and men who wish to “experience” pregnancy. Young girls might even have their wombs sold by their parents.
The rich can offer her life changing money and the promise that she will survive and not need it anyway, being so poor.

It’s a big no for me.

Do you not understand how feelings work? You are being unecessarily dismissive of how much not being able to have children impacts upon some people.

Your argument is ridiculous. No baby gets to consent to being born. So many babies are born in horrendous circumstances that they did not get to consent to. It’s a body part. The dead woman is not donating her DNA/eggs/embryo. She is just providing housing for another woman’s baby to grow in.

I don’t think she is. I think she’s just pointing out that, yes, while not being able to have children is truly horrendous for some people and may feel like a disability to them, it is not actually a disability. So we shouldn’t call it that.

Why would you have an issue with egg donation from a dead donor, if you don't have an issue with a uterus? That's just tissue and organs, right?

It is not ridiculous to have reticence over organ donation at all.

Read around many donor family and recipient experiences and the complex emotions that accompany these processes.

The Story of A Heart is excellent.

Being flippant and pretending there are no possible psychological emotional, cultural, social, mental health considerations to all this is frankly unimaginative and disingenuous.

She's been dismissive from the start. You don't need to rationalise her responses to that degree.

Some people see body parts as 'housing'. Some don't.

I didn’t say I would have an issue with egg donation. I suggested that I could see why others may take issue with it if it was the woman’s eggs she was donating, rather than her womb. Of course there’s a difference with egg donation! I’m surprised I have to spell this out - but if she donated her eggs she would be the child’s biological mother and yes, that may well bring up some complicated feelings for the child, knowing that their biological mother was dead. This is obviously very different. It’s a body part that doesn’t contribute to the creation of the child, it just facilitates its growth. Of course, it’s still a vital part of the process and I’m sure there will be complicated feelings and emotions from all parties involved. But that doesn’t make it not worth doing. If a young woman loses her life it can feel like her life was in vain, wasted because she lost it when she was young. Doing something like this, I expect might give some families (and the person, before they died - when they opted in) peace of mind that their life wasn’t in vain. That they went on to help create a brand new life, and also saved 4 more people’s lives through other organ transplants. Just because something’s difficult and emotional, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.

The womb is an organ. Its not 'just a space' anymore than a heart s 'just a space for blood to flow through'.

.

If it would be strange for a child to know their biological mother was dead, you don't think it'd be strange for them to know that they grew in a dead woman's uterus?

"If a young woman loses her life it can feel like her life was in vain, wasted because she lost it when she was young."

But it's okay if another woman can use her uterus to make a child? She's served her purpose after all, and so it's okay that she's dead? I'm sure that's not what you mean, but that's how it sounds.

And the issue is that some families might get peace of mind that their female relative didn't die in vain (although that's a rather silly sentiment). The family. Because as uterus donation is not something listed, and I imagine not something that people consider being incredibly rare, I very much doubt that women who die in rare enough circumstances that their organs can be donated, will have had a conversation with their female family member about whether she would want her uterus donated.

There is no explicit, clear consent from the pertinent party, only a family guessing what she wanted, with their own agendas at play. That's not good enough. It would be very easy for the NHS to add the uterus and every other specific organ to the list of possible donations. So why don't they?

Its interesting how this post manages to appear dismissive and contemptuous of women's feelings, and yet jealously possessive of female body parts all in one go.

His mother is supposedly a biology professor 🙄

I’m not pretending there are no psychological, emotional, cultural, social or MH considerations. It’s a huge thing, and very emotional I expect. But as I said in the post above, just because something’s difficult and emotional, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. It’s a little taboo (as is other organ donation) because it’s very new and it’s very intimate. Humans take time to get their heads round pioneering medical advancements like this, psychologically, emotionally, culturally and socially. Look at blood transfusions, which started in the 1700s - people were horrified at the idea of it. So horrified it went on to be banned all over the world. Now, it saves lives every day. Look at IVF, which I’m sure people were up in arms about at the beginning. I’m sure the thought of an embryo growing inside a Petri dish rather than a human body was horrifically mind-blowing for some people. Now it’s a commonly accepted way to help infertile people conceive. People are only shocked by this because it’s radical.

When I signed up for my donor card, thirty odd years ago, the man was very clear on how personal a choice it was, and spelled out that nobody should donate unless they were wholly comfortable with it, and there should be no judgement if someone didnt want to donate, or donate only certain parts. For whatever reason. Consent over our bodies was respected.

Now of course it's assumed everyone is happy to donate everything. In only 30 years the whole assumption of what is permissible and even a tacit obligation has shifted.