India's first womb transplant done in Pune

Mumbai: A team of doctors at Pune’s Galaxy Care Laparoscopic Institute (GCLI) conducted India’s first womb transplant on a 21-year-old woman from Solapur on Thursday.

The uterus donor was the recipient’s 45-year-old mother.  Doctors successfully transferred the uterus of the mother to her daughter, who did not have a uterus since birth.

Uterine transplant is a potential treatment for this form of infertility. Once the transplant is successful it could bring hope to a lot of women who want to be a mother and struggling with infertility.

Oncosurgeon Dr Shailesh Puntambekar, who performed the surgery with a team of doctors said the operation was successful.

“It was an eight and half hour of surgery. The donor is conscious and sitting up and having her food. The recipient is kept under observation to make sure no post operation complications arise. It is first uterine transplant in India,” Dr Puntambekar told this newspaper on Thursday.

Meanwhile, confirming this to be India’s first uterus transplant, state director of the health service Dr Satish Pawar told this newspaper, “We have been given permission to carry out the uterus transplant.”

The procedure of harvesting uterus was done through small incision laparoscopically and transplanted in the recipient. The operation started at 9 am and got over at 8 pm.

After the transplant, the recipient will be kept at hospital for three weeks under observation and after eight months further procedure required will be initiated.

What is uterus transplant?
Uterine transplant is a surgical procedure whereby a uterus is harvested from a donor and transplanted into an organism of which the uterus is absent or diseased. It is a potential treatment for infertility.

Other examples
Only a handful of uterus transplants have been performed in the world and all the successful surgeries have been in Sweden. In September 2014, the first baby was born to a woman who got a transplanted uterus.