Womb Transplants: How Will They Work?

Ten British women will be given the chance of having their own babies after surgeons were given the go-ahead to carry out the first womb transplants in the UK. But how will it work?

:: Why womb transplants?

Around one in 5,000 women is born without a fully-formed womb. Others have a hysterectomy because of cancer or other serious disease.

That suggests up to 50,000 women in the UK have no viable womb. But a much smaller number will be of childbearing age, and fewer still will want to undergo the rigours of the procedure.

:: What will the procedure involve?

The first step is to create embryos using standard IVF techniques from the woman's eggs and her partner's sperm. These will then be frozen and stored.

She will then undergo the transplant, receiving a womb from a brain-dead, but heart-beating, donor.

She'll immediately start taking drugs to suppress her immune system so the 'foreign' organ isn't rejected.

Because the women still have their own ovaries producing hormones they should start having regular periods.

If the womb is healthy a year later, doctors will transfer the IVF embryos.

They’ll keep taking the immunosuppressant drugs, but they won't need to take artificial hormones to sustain the pregnancy.

:: Is it likely to work?

Swedish doctors have already carried out a series of womb transplants as part of the world's first trial, with encouraging results.

Nine women have been given donor organs.

Two had to have emergency hysterectomies.

Of the remaining seven, four have had babies and another two have been pregnant but miscarried.

:: Is it safe?

The women in the Swedish study all received wombs from live donors.

The wombs in the British trial will be from people who have volunteered to donate their organs on death.

That shouldn't make a difference to the success of the transplant, but doctors need to be sure.

However, they are confident that the immunosuppressant drugs are safe to take in pregnancy.

Tens of thousands of women who've had kidney transplants have gone on to have healthy babies despite the medication.

The drugs can be stopped once the wombs have been removed after childbirth, reducing the long term risks to the women, which include a raised risk of cancer.

:: What's the timeline?

The Womb Transplant UK team have already got 104 women who meet the study criteria: they are 38 or under, are of healthy weight and are in a long term relationship.

Five of them will have transplants next year, starting in the spring, with another five having the procedure the year after.

The first embryo transfers are likely in the spring of 2017. If all goes well the first baby could be born around Christmas.

:: Will the NHS pay?

The study will be funded by charitable donations. Around £40,000 has been raised so far, enough for the first transplant. But £500,000 will be needed to complete the trial.

After that it would be up to the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to rule whether it is cost effective for the NHS to fund.