'Miracle' Baby: Meet first UK mom to give birth after womb transplant from her own...

For the first time in the UK, a woman has become a mother after receiving a womb transplant from her older sister. Grace Davidson, 36, welcomed a healthy baby girl named Amy on February 27 at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in London, two years after she underwent the life-changing transplant.

Grace was born with a rare condition called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, which meant she didn’t have a working womb. Although she had healthy ovaries, the absence of a womb made it impossible for her to carry a child. For years, she explored other ways to become a mother, including surrogacy and adoption. But when she heard about the possibility of a womb transplant, she began to consider it as a real option.

Her older sister, Amy Purdie, 42, who already has two daughters of her own, stepped up in an extraordinary act of love. She decided to donate her womb so that Grace could have a chance to carry her own baby. The transplant surgery took place in February 2023 at the Oxford Transplant Centre, a part of Oxford University Hospitals.

Grace’s husband, Angus Davidson, shared how emotional the experience was, especially after waiting and holding back feelings for so many years. “We had been kind of suppressing emotion, probably for 10 years,” he said, adding that the emotions finally came out in what he called “ugly crying” when Amy was born.

The entire journey was supported by a team of doctors, nurses, and researchers. Professor Richard Smith, one of the lead doctors in the UK womb transplant program, said Amy’s birth is the result of more than 25 years of medical research and effort.

Worldwide, more than 100 womb transplants have taken place since the first successful ones happened in Sweden in 2013. So far, around 50 healthy babies have been born thanks to this medical breakthrough. Grace now hopes her story inspires more women and gives them another option to experience the joy of carrying their own child.