Today, doctors across the UK have been given the go ahead to perform womb transplants. Yes, you can now get a whole new womb if yours is being a bit of a dick, thanks to an operation that went down really well over in Sweden.
‘Over the years I have quite a lot of crisis with this project... but when you meet the women who have been born without a uterus, or who have had their uterus removed for one reason or another, this is really heart-rending stuff and that is what has kept us going,’ Dr. Richard Smith, a consultant gynaecologist at the Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in London, and heading up the Womb Transplant UK project, told BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme. ‘There is an innate desire in many women to carry their own baby. This procedure has the potential to satisfy that innate desire.’
According to stats, around one in 7,000 women are born without a womb, and others lose their womb to cancer; around 100 women have been already listed to receive donors and the first baby born via a womb transplant will probably happen in 2017. Mainly because, after the operation (which takes a cool six hours), the patient needs to be monitored for a year before an embryo can be implanted. Just to make sure there's no nasty rejection, or issues. In terms of how long you get to keep the womb for - couples will have two goes at pregnancy before the womb is removed. This is down to the immunosuppressants that would need to be taken in order to stop the body rejecting the new organ, and to make sure everything stays healthy - once the woman has given birth, a team of surgeons will safely remove it.
There are more than 300 women who've already approached the team at Womb Transplant UK, with 104 meeting the actual criteria which includes: Being 38 or under, having a long-term partner and being a healthy weight. They will also need to have healthy ovaries that are able to produce their own eggs, as the process of implanting does involve their own eggs rather than another woman's.
Great news for women and couples everywhere.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.