First British Baby Born Using Transplanted Womb From Dead Donor (bbc.com) 70
A 10-week-old boy named Hugo has become the first baby born in the UK from a womb transplanted from a deceased donor, after his mother Grace Bell -- who was born without a viable womb due to a condition called MRKH syndrome, which affects one in every 5,000 women -- underwent a 10-hour transplant operation at The Churchill Hospital in Oxford in June 2024.
Hugo was born just before Christmas 2025, weighing nearly 7lbs, at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in west London, following IVF treatment and embryo transfer at The Lister Fertility Clinic. Bell's transplant is one of three completed so far as part of a UK clinical research trial that plans to carry out 10 such procedures from deceased donors, and Hugo is the first baby born from any of them.
Earlier in 2025, a separate effort produced baby Amy, the first UK birth from a living womb donation -- her mother had received her older sister's womb in January 2023. Globally, more than 100 womb transplants have been performed, resulting in over 70 healthy births.
Hugo was born just before Christmas 2025, weighing nearly 7lbs, at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in west London, following IVF treatment and embryo transfer at The Lister Fertility Clinic. Bell's transplant is one of three completed so far as part of a UK clinical research trial that plans to carry out 10 such procedures from deceased donors, and Hugo is the first baby born from any of them.
Earlier in 2025, a separate effort produced baby Amy, the first UK birth from a living womb donation -- her mother had received her older sister's womb in January 2023. Globally, more than 100 womb transplants have been performed, resulting in over 70 healthy births.
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Adopt? What part of the world do you live in where that is still possible in 2026? Even adopting from 3rd world nations is difficult now. ... Googling I see "private adoption" is possible in the Land of the Free if you have enough money. Everything is for sale, eh?
Non-family adoptions in Australia are down to 26 in 2024. I know one person who managed to adopt years ago, because he had the same medical condition as the baby. You don't apply for that - they find you.
You can try to foster a child, but you
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My experience in my corner of Europe is similar. The waiting is 7 years for a "normal" child. If you tick additional boxes it is quicker to get a child with retardation or serious illness. I believe this is best for parents who come prepared, for example healthcare professionals. You can also be offered older children or a family of 4, taking the risk of problematic behaviours related to their history, or family secrets.
I believe adopting from third world nations, even if still possible, is for different pe
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Also, some additional notes:
In some countries (including mine, Iceland), surrogacy is illegal. You cannot legally pay someone to have a child for you if you can't bear one yourself. And of course if you do, you not only face legal liability, but they won't recognize the child as yours.
Also, for anyone who has not done it, raising a child that doesn't see you as their mother (I was with someone for several years who had two children from a previous marriage) is - at least it was in my experience - horrible.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
It's essentially renting a womb and buying a child, dressed in extra steps of science and modern medicine.
The entire "donating eggs" process is also very hard on women, and many of the drugs they use for preparation and extraction have not been thoroughly tested and may have led to serious cancers.
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Also, some additional notes:
In some countries (including mine, Iceland), surrogacy is illegal.
I was looking this up. Altruistic surrogacy only allowed within families. I can understand (though am not sure I support) a ban on commercial surrogacy, but that seems to be going too far. Do I understand right that this basically comes down to religious interference in people's lives?
I'll never forget one night when the little girl was scared of the dark and started calling out "Mommy! Mommy!" And I rushed in to try to comfort her, but she kept calling out, "No, I want MY mommy!" and I couldn't console her. Just heartbreaking - it makes me cry just writing this. Never again for me.
For future, some kids can be negotiated with and if you agree about handling this in advance they will let you console them. Don't rule it out, but make sure you try a night or two when "mommy" is actually available before you
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It's not religious-based at all (we're one of the least religious countries on Earth - religious people generally love surrogacy). It's seen as like sex trafficking.
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I can understand that situation for paid surrogacy, especially abroad. I do not understand it for voluntary altruistic surrogacy, even if I can see problems around the handover after birth.
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Also, some additional notes:
In some countries (including mine, Iceland), surrogacy is illegal. You cannot legally pay someone to have a child for you if you can't bear one yourself. And of course if you do, you not only face legal liability, but they won't recognize the child as yours.
That's surprising. What is the legal notion?
Also, for anyone who has not done it, raising a child that doesn't see you as their mother (I was with someone for several years who had two children from a previous marriage) is - at least it was in my experience - horrible. No matter what you do for them, you will never be loved by them in the same way they do their biological mother. You're always second class, just a playmate and servant.
You forgot wallet. For better or worse, there is a hierarchy in single mom world. First is her children, second is her ex, third is her friends. I don't even think it is that conscious of a thing. But there will be constant reminders that they are her children, not yours.
The hell of the thing is that you end up loving the children fiercely, yet are more a sponsor than a father. So when the likely divorce happens, you lose again. Then you really find out.
Coupl
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Why adopt?
Besides, this isn't even new, and a lot of these have already been done. First living donor was in Sweden in 2014, first deceased donor was in Ohio in 2019, and many more (of each kind) have been done and resulted in a successful live birth since.
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I mean, this is still a new, expensive, and risky procedure (anything involving transplants is, it means being on immunosuppressants). But overall, yeah. So many people still have this misperception that this is the world of 50 years ago and there's hundreds of millions of young, healthy, neglected kids out there in the world just waiting for an adoptive parent, and it's just not true. Adoption is nonsensically slow and difficult. Right now, the world doesn't need more adoptive parents, it needs more ki
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I mean, this is still a new, expensive, and risky procedure (anything involving transplants is, it means being on immunosuppressants).
From the article, about a third of the children resulting from this are not healthy births.
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You need to work on your reading comprehension. The sentence:
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You need to work on your reading comprehension. The sentence:
Perhaps I am dreadfully misinterpreting. and perhaps 30 percent never became pregnant, perhaps there was a spontaneous abortion. Perhaps the womb was rejected during the pregnancy.
You are correct - we do not know - they do not tell us what the non-successful outcome was. However there is another possibility. We aren't getting everything. Like what that 30 percent failure rate issues were?
I've been around long enough to know that when intelligence is omitted, there is often a very good reason for it.
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Correct. See my reply further downthread.
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You mention "70 percent", but the numbers can't be related that way from that statement. It does NOT say "70 of the wombs successfully produced babies, and 30 of the wombs had complications."
There's no way to derive a percent number from "number of operations" and "number of babies", so perhaps avoid trying to draw any conclusions in that direction until other/more numbers are available.
1) one womb can have multiple pregnancies.
2) Each pregnancy may or may not result in a healthy baby.
2a) be
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You mention "70 percent", but the numbers can't be related that way from that statement. It does NOT say "70 of the wombs successfully produced babies, and 30 of the wombs had complications."
Go back and re-read what I wrote:
I'm not disagreeing with you on what you wrote. What I am saying is that when I receive a statistic that is monovariant, I ask for more variants.
When the single variant shown is 70 out of 100 of the resulting births resulted in a healthy baby, I will ask what thirty percent of the results were, and why.
You might not like it when I ask - but rest assured, if I am in the decision loop, I will demand knowing what 100 percent of the outcomes were, not 70 percent.
This i
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Hmm... re-read the post. Guess I read too much into your use of the specific number 30%. Perhaps there's something in the article, but there's nothing in the summary implying a "30% failure rate" that you stated. If you were just stating that as one possible hypothetical number, (or there's more information in the article) then sure, that makes sense.
It sounded to me like:
"there were 30 crates and 20 oranges in the shipment".
"Perhaps 30 percent of the crates were faulty because..." which is non-sequitur.
Re: Why not adopt? (Score:1)
I mean, this is still a new, expensive, and risky procedure (anything involving transplants is, it means being on immunosuppressants)
I have a kidney transplant myself, and I also know that not all transplants are created equal. Lung transplants are the most fraught with risks, but something like this probably isn't. They only need it for as long as they want to bear children, after that it can just be removed. Some transplants, like corneas, only temporarily need immunosuppressant, I'm curious how a uterus works given the immune system already has to treat it differently from most organs, but either way, it's not as if it's permanent.
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If you really feel you need a child, why not adopt a child instead of this procedure whereby you made yet another human?
A lot of people want children they are genetically related to. They want to pass on their genes. It's the most basic of all animal instincts really - to reproduce, and pass on their genetic heritage to future generations. Logically, there are many good arguments against it. Overpopulation. Children in need of adoption or foster care. I am not here to debate about it, just to state the obvious: people are animals, and animals seek sexual reproduction, just like every other species on this planet.
Re:Why not adopt? (Score:4, Insightful)
why not stop judging people about what they do with their body
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Why not stop judging people about judging people?
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Why not stop judging people about judging people?
Because tolerance of intolerance is the death of tolerance. People have a duty to judge each other, but it must only go so far and leave plenty of space for variation. Pedophiles out. Loving, stable, homosexual couples who provide a good upbringing in. Anyone who tries to forgive and hide the former out. Anyone who tries to destroy the latter without evidence of wrongdoing also out. People who try to hide evidence of wrongdoing and pretend that there aren't bad couples? Double out. The Judge Judgers who Jud
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no, I don't think I will
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The drive many humans feel to propagate their genes. The whole experience of carrying a child to term is part of a bonding exercise for many.
I don't feel it myself, but I completely understand why many people do.
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The whole experience of carrying a child to term is part of a bonding exercise for many.
Don't do that. It's been said often before, but worth saying again. Having a child is a huge challenge and even if you are well bonded before, it may not be enough if things become difficult. Try to at least start from a place of strength and trust and definitely it's better to have at least two people who care.
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The whole experience of carrying a child to term is part of a bonding exercise for many.
Don't do that. It's been said often before, but worth saying again. Having a child is a huge challenge and even if you are well bonded before, it may not be enough if things become difficult. Try to at least start from a place of strength and trust and definitely it's better to have at least two people who care.
One of the worst things to happen in a marriage is having children. It is pretty natural to want children - especially for women - but the stress can destroy the relationship.
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The drive many humans feel to propagate their genes. The whole experience of carrying a child to term is part of a bonding exercise for many.
I don't feel it myself, but I completely understand why many people do.
I can't disagree, but how does this affect single mothers looking for a sponsor, yet don't want any more children? The man she wants must have no inclination to pass on his genes, and only care to pass on hers, and whoever she mated with to have children.
That's some serious altruism there.
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Sponsor? You sound like an echo from the manosphere.
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Sponsor? You sound like an echo from the manosphere.
Cambridge dictionary notes for sponsorship: " the act of supporting a person, organization, or activity by giving money, encouragement, or other help"
In the world of single moms and the men they want to marry, sponsorship is not an inaccurate description.
Single moms are often in a difficult financial position. It's hard to raise children on your own in a world that now needs two people's income to live well.
And there is the setup. The man needs to look very carefully at the situation. Is she actuall
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"..yet another human"
Are you not a fan of humans? Or is it babies you don't like?
It's within your power to make one less human if you want to. Stopping breathing for about 10 minutes should do it.
Meanwhile most countries are getting older and the next pandemic / asteroid / disaster is just around the corner.
Adoption is great, births are great. Try to be more grateful for yours and you might be happier.
Re:Why not adopt [a clone]? (Score:2)
If you really feel you need a child, why not adopt a child instead of this procedure whereby you made yet another human?
Quoted against the censor trolls because I can't figure out what they are upset about?
However the "alternative solution" joke I was looking for would have been the cloning approach. Basically on the circumstantial evidence, I'm convinced there are some human clones out there. Yeah, I know it's illegal, but the people who want to clone themselves didn't get so stinking rich and powerful by worrying too much about what the laws say. What's breaking a few more laws between rich friends?
So going for Funny: I wa
10 week old? (Score:3)
How? Was he 10 weeks old already when he was born? Or did he reach 7lbs from conception and was born prematurely after 10 weeks of pregnancy? Or was he not going to be the first such baby, and then 10 weeks after he was born, he became the first somehow?
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Or he weighed 7 lbs at birth back in December and he is now 10 weeks old.
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Honestly the way they word it sounds like he's the first to have the womb donor die. But that\s only an accomplishment if he killed her.
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Amusing comment ;) But from a more serious perspective: uterus transplants from living donors are much easier, but they're also in much lower supply.
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Congrats! This is officially the most retarded statement ever typed onto the internet.
I'd love to see your list.
In this case I agree with you. The NHS and the UK health system are not (small c) conservative because they are fascist. It's partly due to limited money, but in fact their research is pretty good. It's mostly due to the fact that they actually believe in the "do not harm" part and only start doing things once they believe that there is a decent chance of actually helping people. That can be unfortunate if your best chance is to be experimented on, but on average it saves many many
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They lie through their teeth about everything related to the reproductive and endocrine systems for purely ideological reasons. I am beyond tired of it. We're supposed to be the greatest, most liberated civilization ever, and we consistently attempt to treat everyone's body and way of life as something to optimize for extraction. We tell them that this structure is natural law, meanwhile things just magically work differently in other places for decades and their civilizations don't collapse. Your NHS isn't
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Your NHS isn't even a real healthcare system anymore, you know damn well it's been infected with privatized bullshit just like we do in the US.
I have experienced both systems and other systems, both private and non. The problems of the NHS are underfunding and typical attitude of a state service which doesn't see it's duty to it's users but rather to the state, leaving it impersonal and difficult to communicate with. The problems of the US are liability lead and profit seeking. They are nothing alike.
They lie through their teeth about everything related to the reproductive and endocrine systems for purely ideological reasons. I am beyond tired of it.
Could you give me some specific link to what you mean. This statement is not useful to me.
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Nah. You know exactly what sort of thing I'm talking about and you're pretending it doesn't exist so you can be offended by it and pretend the Cass report isn't propaganda.
Why would you do this? (Score:2)
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hey buddy... you might want to look at the function of the placenta
A regular baby is already a foreign body inside a mother. Why does the mother's immune system not attack them? Why does the baby's not attack the mother?
This probably isn't that much more risk to the child than being born by c-section.
Re:Why would you do this? (Score:5, Informative)
People have been having children while on immunosuppressants since cortisone was released in 1949. Many millions of children. The science supports that having children while on immunosuppressants is safe for the child. And I guarantee you, this is the first thing everyone looking into this procedure asks themselves, as well as every doctor, nurse and researcher in the field.
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People have been having children while on immunosuppressants since cortisone was released in 1949. Many millions of children. The science supports that having children while on immunosuppressants is safe for the child. And I guarantee you, this is the first thing everyone looking into this procedure asks themselves, as well as every doctor, nurse and researcher in the field.
FTA: "Globally, more than 100 womb transplants have been performed, resulting in over 70 healthy births."
That's about a 33 percent failure rate (and to tell with the "over" business. Were people experiencing unhealthy births, stillborns?
And let's not forget the six or more births at a time that was a media trend some years back. A lot of those children were developmentally messed up, physically or intellectually. Yeah, no - the urge to bear children and cause people to go into this knowing the outcome
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Do I seriously need to explain to you how to read English? Or in your mind, is there some law that says "one womb transplant = one birth"?
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On reflection, my wording was too harsh for what was a simple misreading on your part. But just to be clear: some recipients have multiple children. Some have just one. But most have none, and the most common reason is rejection of the transplant. They don't even try IVF until they're certain the transplant isn't being rejected (traditionally at least a 12 month wait, though times have been dropping). 25-30% of transplants fail before IVF can be attempted. Each IVF cycle has ~50% odds for a young woman
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ED: but many have none
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On reflection, my wording was too harsh for what was a simple misreading on your part.
No problem - happens a lot. But really, it wasn't misreading. It was wondering what the specific issues caused that failure rate. I immediately become very curious. I'm a troubleshooter. And if we only hear part of the story, maybe paying attention to the failures and fixing the failures will increase the success rate.
Anyhow, I am different than most people. When I get half the story, I want the rest of it! 8^)
Is this better than surrogate mother? (Score:2)
Livelong immunosuppressants for something you only need for a few years seems out of proportion for me.
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Maybe they can remove the transplant after the function has been fulfilled, or when the receiver reaches menopause age.
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The article said the couple are considering having another baby, but when they are ready to stop the mother will have the transplant womb removed. She only needs to take the drugs for as long as they are planning on having children.
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As was pointed out, not lifelong - and also, FYI, surrogacy is not only very expensive and leaves you without the experience of having carried your child, but it's also illegal in many places.
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Agreed. If there's a legal issue, it seems like the safer route to fix the law. It's a lot of money and risked health just to carry a baby.
Is this really ethical? (Score:1)
Because this comes with severe risks and takes a lot of resources. Seems to me the transplant recipient is getting exploited and valuable medical resources get squandered.
If you really need offspring that inherits your genetic problems, a surrogate mother would be a far better choice. If not, adopt. There are a lot of kids that are already around and would benefit from a good family.
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Because this comes with severe risks and takes a lot of resources. Seems to me the transplant recipient is getting exploited and valuable medical resources get squandered.
If you really need offspring that inherits your genetic problems, a surrogate mother would be a far better choice. If not, adopt. There are a lot of kids that are already around and would benefit from a good family.
I agree. I have a lot of ethical questions. One of the big ones is that success rate doesn't give me the warm fuzzies. And in a public healthcare system, it indeed is a squandering of resources.
Dare I say some of these things seem a little cruel for women? IVF sounds nice, until you see the regimen the woman has to go through, the expense, and the not so great success rate. And for some, a 10 hour operation, messing with anti rejection drugs that carry their own issues, So yet another cruel hope for wome
That's Fucking Gross! (Score:2)
This is the grossest Slashdot headline that I've ever read.
Never before has a Slashdot headline repulsed me so deeply.
Opportunity costs (Score:2)