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Woman Who Received World’s First Successful Womb Transplant Is Now Pregnant

By Makini Brice | Update Date: Apr 12, 2013 02:20 PM EDT

A woman who received the first successful womb transplant appears to be two weeks pregnant. This would be the second medical miracle for the 22-year-old Turkish woman.

According to the Independent, the woman became pregnant through in vitro fertilization. Her doctors wanted to wait 18 months after the surgery to start in vitro fertilization so that they could be sure that there were no problems with the transplant. The embryo was created using one of Ms. Sert's eggs and her husband Mustafa Sert's sperm. The procedure was performed on April 1. Doctors said that they would deliver the baby via Caesarean section and would remove the womb afterwards in order to eliminate any chance of complication.

"The early test results within the past two weeks are compatible with expected pregnancy symptoms. The patient's over all health condition is fine," her physician, Mustafa Unal, said in a statement. The mother-to-be is two weeks pregnant.

Like 1 in 5,000 women, 22-year-old Derya Sert was born without a uterus, according to the Global Post. In August 2011, she made history when she was the first person to have a successful womb transplant, with the uterus coming via donation from a dead woman. She even began menstruating after the procedure, proving it to be a medical success. Technically, Sert is the second woman to undergo such a procedure; a Saudi Arabian woman was the recipient of the first womb transplant from a live donor, but the organ needed to be removed after 99 days from blood clotting.

Many people are awaiting to see whether the pregnancy will also be a success. If it is, it could spell out a new hope for women without wombs, either because they were born without them or they needed to have them removed.

However, many experts are cautiously optimistic about the pregnancy. Both mother and baby are at risk for health problems. There is also a risk for birth defects, because of the use of immunosuppressants in order to transplant the womb, and a risk of pre-term birth.

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