Infertile Daughter To Receive Uterus From Mother 358
kkleiner writes "Led by Dr. Mats Brännström, a team of surgeons at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden are giving Sara Ottosson, now 25 years old, hope that she may one day fulfill her dream of giving birth to a baby. The uterus will come from a very special donor: Eva Ottosson, Sara's mother. Sara's operation will mark only the second time transplantation of a uterus has been attempted in humans, and the first time between a mother and daughter."
Re:well ... (Score:5, Informative)
Uterus != ovaries, so no.
Re:Responsible? (Score:2, Informative)
Surrogate mothers are not allowed in Sweden.
Re:Responsible? (Score:5, Informative)
There's a variety of different ways uterine transplants can be done, and different surgeons are looking at different ones. Two major differences are whether you're dealing donors from cadavers and donors from live patients. Donor uteruses from cadavers obviously aren't doing their owner any good. Donor uteruses from live patients will be generally from surgical situations where the uterus would be removed anyway (clearly not in this situation, but in the general case...). The use of cadavers allows a lot more of the surrounding tissue to be transplanted, which makes blood vessel reconnections easier; however, organs from cadavers are more likely to have complications.
My sympathies to your GF; antiepileptics are generally pretty nasty during pregnancy to the fetus. My spouse is also epileptic, although is trying to wean herself off them. I myself follow this news closely.
Re:Responsible? (Score:4, Informative)
Pregnancies while on immunosuppressants are not rare. There's a huge body of data on their effects on fetuses. There's no body of data on humans born from transplanted uteruses, of course, but the immunosuppressant side is already well covered, and at least in theory, that is the area of concern.
The risk to the patient is *very* real. Transplants are dangerous in the best of circumstances. The patient only needs to carry the transplant for 1 1/2 to 2 years (there's a period after the transplant where they monitor the organ for signs of failure, then there's at least one attempt at implantation, then the organ is removed at the time of birth) -- but there's still significnt chance of risk -- almost certainly a double-digit chance of death. But here's how I personally look at it. The rate of death during pregnancy before modern medicine was about 1.5%, and the average woman had many children (let's say 7 or so) to account for the high rate of infant and child mortality. That's a 10% chance of death per woman. Yet if women hadn't taken that risk -- sometimes accidentally, but more often, knowingly -- we, as a species, would not exist.
Re:Responsible? (Score:3, Informative)
I think that this world is already overpopulated with humans as it is.
No it isn't. There aren't a lot of people dying of starvation due to scarcity of food, which is the usual way of indicating overpopulation. Seems to me that people starving these days are mostly due to neglect or problems with distribution, both of which would happen with half the population we have now.
Environmental damage is not a sign of overpopulation either, that's poor resource management and again, could and would be happening with half our population levels.
We're certainly not running out of space on Earth, so that's right out.
Seriously, what makes you say the world is overpopulated? Traffic on your commute getting worse? Warped elitism "I didn't have a kid, and it was because having a kid is an irresponsible thing to do?"
Anyway, it looks like Sweden's population is growing extremely slow, 0.9% in 2009 [worldbank.org]. One more kid in the world doesn't change the situation much.
Re:Responsible? (Score:5, Informative)
How many resources are wasted on curing deafness?
Most of them, I'd wager. The "deaf community" is very hostile to cochlear implants -- they actually think being deaf is a good thing.
There's a neat documentary (it's watch instant on netflix) called "Sound and Fury". If you didn't hate "deaf culture", you will after watching this eye-opening documentary.
Never mind the rampant illiteracy and extraordinarily low unemployment, these idiots think that being deaf is perfectly normal and that they're not limited in way. Thus, they refuse their children the one technology that will make their lives easier.
Hell, one deaf school fired it's superintendent for not being deaf from birth. These people are evil.
Re:Responsible? (Score:5, Informative)
Also, just to note, there's a sequel to the documentary called Sound and Fury 6 Years Later. Turns out the two deaf parents decided to implant Heather 3 years later when she was 9, and even the mom got implanted. All in all, I think the parents acted in a fairly understandable way. Initially, they were against implanting since it brought up too much emotions about deaf people being inferior, but they later accepted that it'd be better if the kids were able to walk two worlds so to speak. Frankly their issues were so similar to the ones faced by immigrant cultures that it was rather eerie.