This woman was born without a uterus and she just had a baby

In the first such case in America's medical history, a woman born without a uterus has given birth to a healthy baby after a womb transplant. The woman, who has not been identified, gave birth to the baby at Baylor University Medical centre in Dallas, Texas.

"We've been preparing for this moment for a very long time. I think everyone had tears in their eyes when the baby came out. I did for sure," Dr Liza Johannesson, an ob-gyn and uterus transplant surgeon at Baylor, told the Time Magazine.

The woman delivered the baby on Friday (1 December), about a year after receiving a womb from a 36-year-old mother-of-two, Baylor hospital spokesman Craig Civale said.

Local media reported that the Dallas hospital has had a study underway for several years to enrol up to 10 women for uterus transplants. The only condition that women needed to have to be part of the clinical trial was to have an absolute uterine factor infertility (AUI), which means their uterus should be non-functioning or non-existent.

In October 2016, the hospital said four women had received transplants but three of the wombs had to be removed because of poor blood flow. So far, Baylor has completed eight transplants and confirmed to The Time that another pregnant woman is in the trial, using a living donor uterus.

Expressing his emotions attached to the procedure, Dr Giuliano Testa, the leader of the uterus transplant clinical trial at Baylor, and surgical chief of abdominal transplant for Baylor Annette C and Harold C Simmons Transplant Institute, said: "We do transplants all day long. This is not the same thing.

"I totally underestimated what this type of transplant does for these women. What I've learned emotionally, I do not have the words to describe.

The birth

According to reports, the delivery was a scheduled Caesarean section. Recounting the moment, Dr Robert T Gunby Jr, the obstetrician and gynaecologist who delivered the baby, said: "I've delivered a lot of babies, but this one was special. When I started my career we didn't even have sonograms. Now we are putting in uteruses from someone else and getting a baby."

Dr Gunby also said that when he first held the baby he became emotional. It was an emotional moment for almost all of the members of the team, he added.

"Outside my own children, this is the most excited I've ever been about any baby being born. I just started to cry," Dr Gregory J McKenna, a transplant surgeon at Baylor.

Taylor Siler: The woman who contributed in the breakthrough birth

Taylor Siler is a registered Dallas nurse, who contributed in the historic birth by donating her uterus to the woman.

Mother of two boys, aged 6 and 4, Siler said she decided to donate her organ to the woman in need after seeing a news segment about Baylor's uterus transplant programme.

"I have family members who struggled to have babies, and it's not fair. I just think that if we can give more people that option, that's an awesome thing," she said, adding it was her choice as well as that of her husband's.

The 36-year-old reportedly went through extensive screening for both her physical and mental health before the trial, which requires a surgery and about 12 weeks of recovery.

Baylor stated that the transplant procedure typically takes 10 hours — about five hours for the wombs to be removed from the living donors, and another five to transplant.

Though Siler does not know the new mother, she said when the hospital informed her about the delivery she has just been crying and "getting teary thinking about it".

"I think about her every day and I probably will for the rest of my life," she added.