- Surgeons Wednesday revealed that they had successfully implanted a womb in an unidentified 34-year-old woman
- READ ALSO: Mother donates womb to her daughter
Biological men will benefit from the UK‘s first ground-breaking womb transplant surgery — but face a wait of up to two decades until they are eligible.
Surgeons Wednesday revealed that they had successfully implanted a womb in an unidentified 34-year-old woman, who is based in England and was born without one.
The organ was donated by her sister, who already has children, in the hopes that the recipient can start her own family.
Medics are now optimistic that she can successfully undergo IVF this year — giving hope to thousands of sterile women.
Experts have previously said a similar operation could be performed on a trans woman, a biological male who identifies as a woman, to help them better match their new gender.
But one of the surgeons behind the mammoth 17-hour op, which took place in February, expects these patients face a wait of up to two decades.
Professor Richard Smith, from Imperial College London, carried out the landmark womb transplant alongside colleague Isabel Quiroga, from the Oxford Transplant Centre.
While UK law obliges medics to offer biological and trans women the same care, surgeons aren’t yet ready, he said.
Professor Smith said: ‘We’re very aware that 2010 Gender Equality Act mandates equal treatment for cisgender and transgender women.
‘But that assumes technical feasibility.
‘And in this case, currently, there is not technical feasibility.’
Obstacles include differences in the anatomy of the pelvis and the blood vessels between the sexes as well as the microbiome, the collection of micro-organisms that naturally live in the human body.
He added: ‘My own sense is if there are transgender transplants that are going to take place, they are many years off.’There are an awful lot of steps to go through.
‘My suspicion is a minimum of 10 to 20 years.’
Trans women cannot currently get pregnant as, due to being born male, their bodies do not produce the eggs needed for fertilisation, in addition to not having a womb to carry the developing baby.
