First UK birth following womb transplant
For the first time in the UK, a woman has given birth following a womb transplant. New mother Grace and father Angus have named their baby Amy Isabel after her sister Amy, who donated her womb, and Miss Isabel Quiroga, who co-led the transplant operation. Grace and baby girl Amy are both doing very well following a caesarean section birth at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in London in February 2025.
This joyful moment follows over 25 years of pioneering research and innovation by a collaborative team of UK experts led by Professor Richard Smith, a consultant gynaecological surgeon, and also for over a decade by Miss Isabel Quiroga, a consultant transplant and endocrine surgeon.
Grace, who is 36 and lives in the south of England, was born without a functioning womb which meant she was unable to carry and give birth to her own baby. This changed in early 2023 when she became the first woman to receive a womb transplant in the UK, after her sister Amy donated her own womb as part of the Womb Transplant UK living donor programme.
The programme is funded by the charity Womb Transplant UK and will include five transplant operations, with approval from the Human Tissue Authority. The programme is led by specialists from Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust and The Lister Hospital, part of HCA Healthcare UK. The teams also supported Grace through her pregnancy journey and birth.
As reported in 2023 by BJOG, the international journal of obstetrics and gynaecology, the original donor operation and subsequent transplant took place at the Oxford Transplant Centre, part of OUH’s Churchill Hospital. Grace subsequently had IVF treatment at the HCA UK’s Lister Fertility Clinic in London. She has since been closely monitored at the Churchill Hospital and Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital, which is run by Imperial College Healthcare and is where baby Amy was born.
One in five thousand women in the UK are born without a viable womb and are unable to conceive and carry their own child. Many other women lose their wombs as a result of cancer or other medical conditions. There have been over 100 womb transplants worldwide and more than 50 healthy babies born so far. The first successful womb transplant operations were carried out in 2013 in Sweden.
New mum, Grace, said: “We have been given the greatest gift we could ever have asked for. But we are very aware that for many couples who have gone before us, carrying a baby could only be a dream. We sincerely hope that going forward this could become a wonderful reality, and provide an additional option, for women who would otherwise be unable to carry their own child.”
Grace’s sister, Amy, said: “What a privilege it is to be able to gift something that in many ways I took for granted. Watching Grace and Angus become parents has been an absolute joy and worth every moment. I feel eternally grateful to be part of their journey.”
Professor Richard Smith co-leads the UK living donor programme. He is founder and chair of the charity Womb Transplant UK, a consultant gynaecological surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and professor of practice at Imperial College London. He said: "It's a huge privilege to be part of Grace’s journey. Our whole team are delighted to see Grace and her family so happy with baby Amy. We will all be forever grateful to them for trusting us, and to Amy for donating her womb and giving her sister this opportunity.
"This is the culmination of over 25 years of research, with huge contributions from so many talented people, hospitals and organisations working with our charity Womb Transplant UK. Thank you to each of you, including of course our consultant obstetrician Bryony Jones and the maternity team at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital who did such a brilliant job looking after Grace and baby Amy.
"Our charity-funded programme is still at an early stage. But we hope we will be able to help more women in the near future who are currently unable to conceive or carry their own baby, giving them another option alongside adoption and surrogacy."
Miss Isabel Quiroga, who co-leads the UK living donor programme, is a consultant transplant and endocrine surgeon and clinical lead for organ retrieval at the Oxford Transplant Centre, Oxford University Hospitals (OUH) NHS Foundation Trust. She said: “I was honoured and humbled to find that baby Amy was given Isabel as her middle name. Being involved in this programme has been an absolute privilege, not only because we have been able to carry out the first such operation in the UK, but more importantly because we have shared in Grace’s journey and that of her family and helped her achieve her cherished wish to carry and give birth to her own baby.
“Transplants are usually carried out in order to save a life. With this transplant we have been able to enhance a life, and now to create a life. This is a procedure that will give hope to many women without a functioning womb who thought they might not be able to get pregnant.”
Professor Yau Thum, IVF specialist at the Lister Fertility Clinic in London, part of HCA Healthcare UK, said: “I am so happy that we have achieved the first birth following a womb transplant in the UK. The team has been working very hard on this project for a very long time and this is a big achievement for medicine in this country.”
Nicolette Harrison, director of regulation at the Human Tissue Authority said: “This is wonderful news for the family. The Human Tissue Authority’s role in the regulation of living donations is to check that consent is in place and there is no duress, coercion or reward. In 2024 we approved 1105 cases of living organ donation, with each one helping to save and improve lives in the UK.”
Professor Derek Manas, NHS Blood and Transplant medical director for organ and tissue donation and transplantation, said: “We would like to pass on our huge congratulations to the parents and to wish mother and baby well. We would also like to acknowledge the amazing work of the clinical team and most importantly honour the living donor for the 'gift' of the uterus, donated with special consent into this research programme.”
Kate Brintworth, England’s chief midwifery officer, said: “I am so delighted that Grace, Angus and their whole family have been able to welcome the miracle of Amy to the world. This is a momentous moment in NHS history, and an example of how we are constantly innovating and embracing the latest medical advancements so patients can benefit from groundbreaking care. Led by specialist teams from across the NHS, we should all be very proud of the health service’s role in this UK first and the hope it will bring to so many women.”
Professor Tim Orchard, chief executive of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, said: "This is a huge achievement and the result of many years of research and collaboration, led by Professor Richard Smith. Congratulations to everyone involved, including all the Trust staff who’ve contributed to the programme and our maternity team who cared for Grace and her daughter Amy at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital.
“It’s a privilege to lead an organisation with research and innovation at its heart and to work alongside so many pioneering experts who are committed to providing outstanding care."
Amy’s birth follows over 25 years of womb transplant research in the UK, which had already led to the development of a number of other surgical procedures. This includes the development of the abdominal radical trachelectomy, which has enabled fertility preservation of many thousands of women with early-stage cervical cancer, and the modified Strassman Procedure, which has been used to preserve the reproductive potential of women with placental site tumours, and other conditions.
Further information about womb donation
Womb Transplant UK is a registered charity that raises and manages funds from public donations in order to pay the NHS for the cost of the transplant operations along with its other research costs. The charity funds two programmes:
- a live donor programme for five transplants. Each donation will be approved by the Human Tissue Authority, with all donors expected to be close relatives of patients.
- a Health Research Authority approved deceased donor research programme, which will include 10 transplant operations. Deceased womb donation will only be undertaken after a special, additional request to a family for this research programme - when someone dies in the very rare circumstances where this kind of donation is possible. Deceased donation for all new types of transplants, such as limb and uterus transplants, is not done through the Organ Donor Register or the Deemed Consent (‘opt out’) system.
