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Anaïs, a young woman born without a uterus, gave birth a few days ago to a healthy little girl. A happy outcome that she owes to a uterus transplant from her own sister, carried out by the Foch hospital in Suresnes.
A miracle that occurs for the third time is no longer divine, but a technical and controlled feat. On October 31, at the Foch hospital in Suresnes in Hauts-de-Seine, Anaïs, a young woman gave birth to Léonie, a beautiful, healthy baby measuring 50 cm and 3.1 kg. With a little particularity: Anaïs was born without a uterus, suffering from Rokitansky syndrome, and the one that allowed her to be a mother was that of her own sister, transplanted a year earlier.
A string of successes over the past year
It was in September 2022 that the two sisters underwent surgery at the same time by the teams of Professor Jean-Marc Ayoubi for what will be the second French uterine transplant. The uterus of Aurélie, the big sister, already mother of two children, is successfully transplanted into Anaïs. Before the operation, Anaïs’s eggs had been collected and fertilized with her husband’s sperm. One of the frozen embryos had been implanted into the future mother and this first attempt was enough for this baby, defying all odds, to let out his first cry 9 months later. Like a talisman, Anaïs had a Polynesian turtle tattooed on her stomach, a symbol of fertility, reports the Parisian. Léonie is thus the third baby born from a uterus transplant in France, after Misha and Maxine, the two little daughters of Déborah, the first transplant recipient.
A third transplant a few days earlier
By happy coincidence, a few days earlier, on October 21 in this same hospital, Professor Jean-Marc Ayoubi, carried out the third French uterine transplant, a cutting-edge work which required 18 hours of surgery. The patient, Océane, who benefited from the transplant was also affected, like the two previous patients, with Rokitansky syndrome (MRKH), responsible for infertility due to uterine agenesis (one birth without a uterus in 4,500). The transplant was made from her mother’s uterus. “Everything went as planned, both patients are doing well and have been released from the hospital” announces the hospital press release.
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Uterus transplant, a technique of the future against inevitability?
Having a loved one’s uterus transplanted to finally be able to give birth. The technique is recent and has a bit of magic. But it works, according to these 3 babies born since 2021 and this third transplant. Professor Ayoubi, who received the Jean-Bernard Prize (Doctor of the Year) from the Foundation for Medical Research on November 6, remained the first to be fascinated: “I never thought these transplants would be such a success”he concedes to Parisian. His hospital has authorization to transplant ten women as part of a clinical trial, carried out alongside 25 teams around the world. Would having a uterus transplant be the solution to infertility? “We’re not there yet. But we demonstrated that it was possible.” the professor responds to journalists.
It is indeed difficult to make these exceptions a rule to this day. The selection criteria are still very strict (only 30 French women out of 460 candidates were pre-selected). The 18-hour operation also requires a technique that cannot be practiced on a large scale. But the results of trials all over the world are there: around fifty babies born after a uterine transplant have been born since 2014. 75% of transplants have been successful and 80% of them resulted in a birth.
Enough to give birth, once again, to great hope.