Although 25-year-old Sara Ottoson was born without a uterus and is unable to reproduce, her 56-year-old mother, Eva, plans to donate her own womb in the hopes that Sara will be able to conceive.
So effectively Sara will carry a child in the same womb that carried her! Warped as it may sound, it's not the first time the procedure has been carried out. But if it's successful, the operation will be the first mom-to-daughter womb transplant.
The same surgery was performed back in 2000 in Saudi Arabia, but the womb had to be removed because of complications.
Ottosson, a biology teacher, is pragmatic about the whole thing. So is her mother.
“It's just an organ like a kidney or whatever," she said. "[Sara] needs it, I have it. I don't need it anymore. From the start when we realized what her condition was, she has always been talking about adoption. Then this opportunity came along last autumn. So I think there are loads of young women out there, who for one reason or another can't get their own babies and if this could be some way of doing it in the future, why not?”
Once the transplant has taken place, Ottosson will undergo IVF (using her boyfriend's sperm) and then take medication to ensure her body doesn't reject the foreign organ. The baby would be then delivered by C-section at full term. Once it has served its purpose, the womb will be removed.
If the plan fails, Sara Ottosson said she can always adopt.
Printer-friendly version