A surgeon in India is attempting the world’s first womb transplant on a transgender patient who was born male but wishes to have her own child.

Dr. Narendra Kaushik, who works at the new Olmec facility in New Delhi, wants to be the first medical professional to successfully perform a risky transplant using organs from a deceased female donor or another person changing from woman to man.

“Every transgender woman wants to be as female as possible and that includes being a mother”, says Kaushik, per the Mirror. He adds that a uterine transplant should be “the same as a kidney or any other transplant”.

“This is the future. We cannot predict exactly when this will happen but it will happen very soon. We have our plans and we are very very optimistic about this.”

Patients would need an intact womb from a deceased person or someone who has had a hysterectomy as part of their personal transition, as mentioned above.

They would subsequently undergo IVF (in vitro fertilization) treatment, just like any other person who is unable to conceive naturally.

According to Kaushik, 20% of those traveling overseas are from the United Kingdom, where a successful womb transplant has yet to be conducted.

Despite the fact that no transgender patients have yet benefited from the procedure, he insists that it is “the future” for transgender women and those with gender dysphoria, and while he admits that “we cannot predict exactly when this will happen,” he and his colleagues are optimistic that it will be possible soon.

Womb transplants, which cost around £50,000 each treatment, are still considered experimental.

Organ rejection, urinary tract infections, blood clots, and internal bruises are all major problems that recipients face.

Adverse side effects of immunosuppressants, drugs used to reduce the risk of the body rejecting the organ, may result in additional issues

Although contemporary organ-freezing procedures have made it possible to use deceased donors’ uteri, womb transplants are most commonly performed with a womb donated from a living woman.

In Cleveland, Ohio, in 2019, the first baby was born who was carried to term in a womb transplanted from a deceased donor.

A 45-year-old lady, who was also a mother, had her womb and blood vessels removed after she died of a stroke.

They were then placed into a new woman who was born without a womb and the blood vessels joined to her own in a nearly 11-hour operation.

The lady started menstruating 37 days after the operation and had regular periods for the next seven months till she became pregnant.

An embryo was implanted using eggs extracted from her ovaries and fertilized with IVF before the womb transplant procedure.

The baby grew normally and was delivered by caesarean section after 35 weeks and three days.

The woman’s implanted womb was also removed during the caesarean surgery, and both mother and baby recovered normally.

Source: dailymail.co.uk