New mother After receiving a diagnosis of Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, Mallory discovered that she would not be biologically able to carry her own children.
The first child to be born from a transplanted uterus outside of a clinical trial belongs to a couple.
New mom Mallory and her husband Nick joined the transplant program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medicine, making the birth a reality. The pair was compelled to stay in Birmingham, Alabama for more than a year after obtaining a transplant from a deceased donor through the nonprofit Legacy of Hope. The program is one of only four of its sort in the United States.
The university’s website states that Mallory and Nick decided to pursue a uterine transplant after having their baby through gestational surrogacy with the help of Mallory’s sister. After receiving a Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome diagnosis at the age of 17, Mallory discovered that she would not be able to biologically carry her own children.
The National Organization for Rare Disorders describes the condition as “failure of the uterus and the vagina to develop properly in women who have normal ovarian function and normal external genitalia.” Mallory told the university that she wanted to expand her family and that getting the transplant was something she felt she was “supposed to do.”
The UAB website quotes Mallory as saying, “There are many different ways to grow your family if you have uterine factor infertility, but this [uterus transplant] is what I feel like I knew that I was supposed to do.” I will always be a champion for UAB and uterine transplants in general because they allowed me to conceive and, at long last, start a family of four.
Prior to giving birth to their son in May, Mallory underwent in vitro fertilization and a “near 18-month process” of clinical care.
She told UAB, “Even through some of the difficult things, I truly loved pregnancy because I knew it would be the only time I was going to be able to do it, and I recognized how lucky I was to be able to experience it. Sharing that experience with our kid and allowing her to feel my belly was especially precious. I was just so grateful to have experienced this.
Anupam Agarwal, M.D., senior vice president for Medicine and dean of the Heersink School of Medicine, expressed his excitement for Mallory and her husband, Nick, on the university’s website. “We are humbled that they entrusted our UAB Medicine care team to guide them through this long, difficult — and exciting — journey of transplantation, pregnancy, and childbirth,” he said.
“Our dream and goal for this program is to make this routine for women who want to experience pregnancy and childbirth but can’t due to a variety of health reasons,” he said. “We are equipped with the knowledge and multidisciplinary teams needed to make this a reality. They have done an amazing job with Mallory and our other transplant patients and pregnancies thus far.