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Story behind The Success of India's First Uterus Transplants
Introduction
For every woman, giving birth to a child is the most precious moment. A mother has to go through a lot of pains at the time of delivery. However, she bears that pain happily as she knows that this pain will give her the most priceless gift of her life. Only a woman can feel that moment of happiness.
There is another side of this. There are some women that cannot conceive a baby or face regular miscarriages. This can happen majorly due to two situations,
- When the woman is born without a womb
- When a woman is suffering from Asherman’s Syndrome
As a result they either adopt a child or decide to go with surrogacy method. But, there is another way of which the people were unaware. A woman can bear her own baby with the help of ‘Womb Transplant’. It’s a rare surgery. Before doing it in India for the first time, 25 surgeries were attempted around the world out of which only 9 were successful. The first successful transplant was done in Sweden by Dr. Mats Brannstron in Sahlgrenska University, Gothenburg.
We, at Galaxy Care Hospital, took up the challenge to perform this surgery successfully first time in India in less time.
This is How It All Started:
Before 2 year from now, Dr Shailesh Puntambekar heard a lecture from Dr. Mats Brannstron on womb transplant in US. He was the first to perform successful womb transplant. In that lecture, he realized that Dr. Mats Brannstron took 14 hours to take out the Uterus from the donor. When all the listeners were applauding him, Dr Shailesh Puntambekar was thinking that why he it took 14 hours to do that?
So, from that moment we started finding out the reason. We come to know that the uterus was taken out from the donor through open surgery. But, Dr Shailesh Puntambekar was thinking why donor had to undergo open surgery for that? He started thinking whether we can do it with the help of Laparoscopic technique. Questions were many and we started searching for the answers.
In the last two years, we went to Germany and US to practice on a Cadaver (a dead human body) separating the womb with laparoscopic method. We came back to India and practiced how we can separate the blood vessels through Pune Technique.
Once Dr Shailesh Puntambekar realized that we are ready to do this and we can do this, He started forming his team. We planned each step – how to do it, why to do it and what are the difficultie?
We were not thinking that we are the one who will be doing this for the first time. He was thinking that if a surgeon from Sweden can do it then why not we? If he can do it through open surgery then why not with laparoscopic method? We never did it with the intention to get publicity.
It has been a hard earned effort of 2 years and we got our rewards on 18th and 19th May when we succeed in the womb transplants that too 1st time in India.
Womb Transplant Process
For a womb transplant surgery, a woman has to meet some physical health criteria. We did all the necessary tests to decide whether the recipients fit into the parameters.
First Womb Transplant at Galaxy Care Hospital
Case 1 - Born Without Uterus
- Time - 9 hours
- Donor - 44-year-old mother
- Recipient - 21-year-old daughter
On 18th May, we began with India’s first womb transplant. 21-year-old woman from Solapur was born without uterus. 1 out of 4.5 thousand women are born without uterus. The donor in this case was her mother. She was happy to donate her womb to her daughter.
We wanted to complete the surgery in less time than the time of Sweden’s womb transplant surgery. We had to make some space for womb as the recipient was not having the womb since birth so that took time. He along with his team of 12 surgeons started the surgery at 12 noon. It took 4 hours 30 minutes to take out the womb from the donor’s body. We did it through laparoscopic method. Once the womb was out, it has to be put into recipient’s body within 1 hour. In the 45th minute, the womb was in the recipient’s body. Then with the help of Pune Technique, we joined all the blood vessels. Finally, the surgery was done at 9:15 pm. The surgery took 9 hours to complete. Though the surgery was over, the task was not done yet. When the patient underwent Doppler test and we found that the blood flow through the blood vessels was normal, that was the moment of success for us.
Second Womb Transplant at Galaxy Care Hospital
Case 2 - Uterus was taken out in the past as she was sufferings from Asherman's Syndrome
- Time - 8 hours
- Donor - 41-year-old mother
- Recipient - 24-year-old daughter
After successfully performing the 1st womb transplant, we started with the 2nd womb transplant on 19th May. The second transplant was performed on the 26-year-old woman on Friday. The first baby of the recipient was still-born and after that she had three miscarriages. About two years ago, a medical examination revealed that the patient's uterus was completely damaged and she could never carry. The donor in this case also was the 41-year-old mother of the recipient.
We followed the same procedure. In this case there was a space for recipient’s womb as the womb was taken out earlier as she was suffering from Asherman’s Syndrome. As a result, this surgery was successfully completed in just 8 hours. It took 4 hours to take out the womb from the donor and 4 hours to put the womb in recipient’s body.
Both the womb transplants were successful and both the patients were in normal condition. Both the patients are on Immunosuppressant supplements to avoid any infection. After a specific period, we will reduce the intake of supplements and Embryo will be transferred to the patient.
Challenges - Pre & Post Uterus Transplant Surgery
As this was the first Womb Transplant in India, many people showed concerns about this surgery like,
- Other states were not given the permission to perform this surgery
- None of the Indian surgeons had tried this before
- Only foreigners have succeeded in this type of surgeries
After 6 hours of meeting with Dr. Girish Mahajan he said, “If you are confident about this and your expertise then a team of Government will come at Galaxy Care Hospital and inspect the facilities.” After the inspection, he telephoned me saying the permission has been granted to our Galaxy Care Hospital for 5 years.
There were other challenges too like,
- The surgery needs relative donor
- Tissues has to be matched
- Mental preparation of the patient and her family
- Embryo preparation
- Chances of womb rejection
Achievement
Galaxy Care Hospital is the First to perform Womb Transplants in India & First in the World to Perform 2 Successful Womb Transplants within 48 hrs.
- Both the patients can now bear their own baby
- India’s first womb transplant a success
- First hospital in the world to perform back-to-back successful womb transplants
- The success of these womb transplants have given many such women a hope to conceive their own baby
