First Mother-To-Daughter Womb Transplants

The first mother-to-daughter womb transplants have taken place in Sweden - and the recipients could give birth within two years.

The weekend operations were carried out by more than 10 surgeons at Sweden's University of Gothenburg.

One of the women had previously had her uterus removed after undergoing treatment for cervical cancer, while the other was born without a womb.

The women will have to wait one year before trying to get pregnant.

They will then undergo in vitro fertilization (IVF) with frozen embryos consisting of their own eggs fertilized with their partner's sperm prior to the organ transplant procedure.

"The women who received the uteruses are doing well but are tired after the surgery," said Mats Braennstroem, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the university.

"The mothers who donated their uteruses are already up and walking and are going to be able to go home within a few days."

He said the research team would only know if the process had been successful in 2014, if and when the women have given birth to a child.

He declined to speculate on the chances of them becoming pregnant, but noted that in regular IVF treatments the chance of delivering a baby after an embryo transfer was 25% to 30%.

He said the transplanted uteruses would be removed after the women have had "up to two children", so they can stop taking the immunosuppressant medication that helps their bodies accept the transplant.

One of the other doctors on the team, Michael Olausson, said doctors expected the same risk of rejection rate seen with other organ donations, of around 20%.

The women, whose names were not revealed, were selected for the procedure after a lengthy examination process.

Their mothers were used as donors because of the "theoretical advantage" of having a close relative as a donor, and because the womb had proven its functionality in being able to bear a child.

Eight more women are due to undergo the procedure in Sweden during the autumn and spring.

The research team of 20 scientists, doctors and specialists, has been working on the project since 1999, conducting successful transplants on animals, including mice and primates, that led to births.

Uterus transplants are new, with the first successful one conducted in Turkey in 2011.