Swedish docs claim pioneering uterus transplants

STOCKHOLM -- Two Swedish women are hoping to get pregnant after undergoing what doctors are calling the world's first mother-to-daughter uterus transplants.

Specialists at the University of Goteborg said the weekend surgery went without complications, but added that they won't consider it successful unless the women give birth to healthy children.

One of the unidentified women had cervical cancer and had her uterus removed many years ago. The other was born without a womb. Both are in their 30s.

After a year of observation, doctors will attempt to help them get pregnant via in vitro fertilization.

Researchers around the world have been looking for ways to transplant wombs.

Last year, Turkish doctors said they performed the first successful uterus transplant, giving a womb from a deceased donor to a young woman. Michael Olausson, one of the Swedish surgeons, said he wasn't sure whether the woman has started fertility treatment.

In 2000, doctors in Saudi Arabia transplanted a uterus from a live donor, but it had to be removed three months later because of a blood clot.

Olausson said there could be a lower risk of organ rejection with family members, but he said a more important factor is the "emotional connection" between mother and daughter. Also, the mother-daughter procedure makes it easier to "know that the transplanted organ works," he said. It doesn't matter whether the donor is past menopause, he said.

James Grifo, an infertility expert at New York University, questioned how a fetus would be affected by the immune-suppressing drugs. He and NYU colleagues abandoned a uterus transplant program "because some issues seemed insurmountable."