A baby girl dubbed a “miracle” has been born in the U.K. to a woman born without a uterus, after receiving a life-changing womb transplant from her sister, marking the nation’s first successful birth following the groundbreaking procedure.
Grace Davidson, 36, was born with a rare condition known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, in which girls are born without a fully developed uterus. Although women with this condition have normal chromosomes, functioning ovaries, and typical development of breasts and pubic hair, they do not menstruate, a sign often first noticed during adolescence. Without a uterus, they are unable to carry a pregnancy, though assisted reproductive technologies or a womb transplant can help them achieve motherhood.
In 2023, Davidson underwent the U.K.’s first successful uterus transplant, receiving a womb donated by her sister, in a high risk, complex procedure that took a team of more than 30 medics around 17 hours to complete. Two years later, in February, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl, named Amy, in honor of the sister who made it all possible.
Though Davidson had the option of surrogacy or adoption, she said it felt “really important” to carry her own baby. Sharing the joy of welcoming a healthy newborn with her husband, Angus, she described the moment she held their daughter for the first time as both “incredible” and “surreal.”
“It was quite overwhelming because we’d never really let ourselves imagine what it would be like for her to be here. It was really wonderful,” Davidson told in an interview with BBC.
“I have always had a mothering instinct, but for years I had been suppressing it because it was too painful to go there,” she added.
Professor Richard Smith, a consultant gynecological surgeon and head of Womb Transplant UK, the charity that funded the transplant procedure, describes the achievement as the result of over 25 years of research. He expresses gratitude for the invaluable contributions of many talented individuals, hospitals, and organizations that partnered with them.
“Our charity-funded program is still at an early stage. But we hope we will be able to help more women in the near future who are currently unable to conceive or carry their own baby, giving them another option alongside adoption and surrogacy,” Smith said in a news release.
The world’s first baby born from a womb transplant arrived in Sweden in 2014, marking a revolutionary milestone in reproductive medicine. Since then, over 100 uterus transplants have been performed globally, resulting in more than 50 live births. This groundbreaking procedure offers hope to women with uterine infertility due to conditions such as MRKH syndrome or uterine damage, affecting approximately 1 in 500 women worldwide.
