When Amy Isabel Davidson was born six weeks ago, surgeons from her delivery room founded in tears of joy. The little girl entered history by becoming the first child in Britain to be born of a factory transplant – in an organ given by her aunt to her mother.
Amy was delivered by the Cesarean of the NHS on February 27 at Queen Charlotte and Chelsea Hospital in London. His mother Grace Davidson, 36, described the feeling of “shock” to hold his daughter, after obtaining a belly transplant from his older sister in 2023 – that Amy bears the name.
“It was simply difficult to believe that she was real,” said Davidson. “We received the biggest gift we could have asked for.”
Birth, Described by the NHS as the “Amy miracle”, is a medical step that gives hope to thousands of British women without a functional uterus, for whom it would have previously been impossible to have a child.
Davidson, a dietitian from the NHS northern London, was diagnosed as not having a belly when she was 19 years old following a rare disease called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH). In February 2023, she became the first British woman to have a factory transplant, in complex surgery in Oxford, who took nearly 6 pm and was funded by the charitable organization UKB UK.
The uterus was given by Davidson’s older sister, Amy Pardie, 42, former primary school teacher, who is the mother of two daughters aged ten and six years old. Before the transplantation transplant, Davidson and her husband underwent a fertility treatment to create seven embryos, one of which was then transferred via IVF.
Davidson had a happy pregnancy and Amy, who weighed 4.5 lb and is a healthy baby, was delivered several weeks earlier in the planned cesarean section of 90 minutes.
Experts believe that a maximum of 20 to 30 uterus transplants per year could be carried out in the United Kingdom in the future
Transplant UK / PA Factory
Amy’s father, Angus Davidson, described how his daughter “came out crying” in a “love room”, with those present, including the medical staff who had made the belly transplant. “The room was so full of love and joy and all those people who had a direct interest in Amy for incredible medical and scientific reasons,” he said.
“The moment we saw it was incredible, and we both broke down in emotional tears – it’s difficult to describe, it was exaltation.”
The birth of Amy is the culmination of decades of work for Richard Smith, which has set up the charitable WUP transplant UK and is a gynecological surgeon consultant at the Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust.
Smith said: “I feel a great joy, in fact, incredible – 25 years later to start this research, we finally have a baby, Little Amy Isabel.
“Amazing, really surprising. There have been a lot of tears shed by all of us in this process – really quite emotional, that’s for sure. It’s really something.”
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Smith, who was on site for delivery, said that “the most frightening thing for me on delivery was the prospect of dropping the baby as it was given to me”.
He added: “I must say that I got out of the piece of Queen Charlotte (hospital) with tears flowing on my face. It is a quarter of a century – a good proportion of my career.”
Smith was the main surgeon with Isabel Quiroga, from the Oxford Transplant Center, who said she was “humiliated” to hear that Bébé Amy received the second first name Isabel.
Quiroga said: “For me, it’s a total joy, a pleasure. I could not be happier for Angus and Grace, what a wonderful couple. It was overwhelming in fact, it remains overwhelming. It’s fantastic.”
The charitable organization has carried out three other transplants on women in the United Kingdom which received factories, also known as uterus, deceased donors. We hope that these women will also continue to have babies.
Experts believe that a maximum of 20 to 30 factory transplants per year could be carried out in the United Kingdom in the future.
Currently, transplants, which cost around £ 30,000, are not funded by the NHS because surgery is considered too experimental. However, the NHS could provide funding in the future, and after Davidson has become pregnant, the NHS has covered the management costs of its pregnancy and the sure delivery of Baby Amy.
Since the first transplant of the uterus in Sweden in 2014, 50 babies have been born worldwide due to the very complex procedure, mainly in the United States and the Middle East. A transplanted belly should last five years, which is enough for two pregnancies, and women must take immunosuppressants during pregnancy to make sure that their bodies do not reject the uterus.
Estimates suggest that there are 15,000 women in the United Kingdom of Prosecution Age who do not have a functional uterus, including those who had hysterectomy during cancer treatment. Ulatrical transplants could be a solution for these women, who should have previously had to use a substitution or adopt.
Kate Brintworth, head of the midwife in England, said: “I am so delighted that Grace, Angus and their whole family were able to welcome the miracle of Amy in the world.
“It is a crucial moment in the history of the NHS, and an example of the way in which we innovate and constantly adopt the latest medical advances so that patients can benefit from revolutionary care.
“Directed by specialized teams from the whole NHS, we should all be very proud of the role of the health service in this United Kingdom first and the hope that it will bring to so many women.”
