17 months after novel womb transplant, woman set to deliver

Mumbai: Exactly 17 months after a Vadodara woman underwent a womb transplant in Pune’s Galaxy Care hospital—the country’s first such operation was performed only a day earlier, hers was the second—doctors, including one from Mumbai, are preparing to perform an emergency Cesarean section to deliver her baby.
“We may need to operate as early as Friday morning,” said Dr Neeta Warty, a laparoscopic surgeon who had transplanted the donated womb into the Vadodara woman last year. The womb was donated by the recipient’s 45-year-old mother.

While doctors were planning to carry out the C-section in the first week of November, when the foetus would be around 34 weeks old, the mother-to-be started suffering from high levels of blood sugar and blood pressure. “Moreover, tests have indicated that the placenta (an organ that connects the foetus to the uterine wall and provides nourishment) is maturing faster than the foetus,” said Warty. An aging (or calcified) placenta, as in the Vadodara woman’s case, would be detrimental to the growth of the foetus, which would be better off outside.

Dr Shailesh Puntambekar, the doctor who began the womb transplant programme in the country and has completed six transplants so far, told TOI, “Nerves aren’t transferred as part of the womb transplant, hence these women will not suffer labour pains.” His team has been closely monitoring the pregnancy during the last 31 weeks. A sonography done on Wednesday showed the baby was doing well.

“We are monitoring her closely, and all I can say at this moment is that we will deliver her baby within the next 48 hours for sure,” he told TOI on Wednesday evening.

Dr Puntambekar and Dr Warty carried out India’s first womb transplants on May 18 and 19, 2017. While Sweden and the US had already performed womb transplants, India’s uniqueness was that both the womb or uterus donations and transplants were done laparoscopically. “The Sweden transplants were cut surgeries, but not here,” he said. While Dr Puntambekar retrieved the uteruses from the donors using laparoscopic surgery, Dr Warty transplanted them laparoscopically as well.