General News
Baby girl makes history as first child born in the UK from a transplanted womb
Kofi Acquah, 10:49am, 08 April 2025; 3 minute read

A baby girl has made history as the first child in the UK to be born from a womb transplant.
Grace Davidson, 36, from north London, received the organ – also called the uterus – from her older sister, Amy, in the UK’s first womb transplant in 2023.
Now, following the huge success of the procedure, she has given birth to baby Amy Isabel, named after her aunt and a surgeon who helped perfect the technique.
“Having waited such a long time, it’s kind of odd getting your head around that this is the moment where you are going to meet your daughter.
“The room was full of people who have helped us on the journey to actually having Amy.
“We had been kind of suppressing emotion, probably for 10 years, and you don’t know how that’s going to come out – ugly crying it turns out!
The news gives hope to thousands of women born without a womb or whose womb fails to function.
Mrs Davidson, an NHS dietitian, and her husband Angus, 37, who works in finance, are over the moon with their new arrival.
Baby Amy was born by planned NHS Caesarean section on February 27 at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in London.
Mrs Davidson said she felt “shock” when she first held her daughter, adding: “We have been given the greatest gift we could ever have asked for.”
She told the PA news agency: “It was just hard to believe she was real. I knew she was ours, but it’s just hard to believe…
“Our family are just so happy for us. It sort of feels like there’s a completeness now where there maybe wasn’t before.”
Mrs Davidson was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH), a rare condition that affects around one in every 5,000 women, meaning they have an underdeveloped or missing womb.
However, the ovaries are intact and still function to produce eggs and female hormones, making conceiving via fertility treatment a possibility.
Before receiving the donated womb, Mrs Davidson and her husband underwent fertility treatment to create seven embryos, which were frozen for IVF in central London.
Mrs Davidson then had surgery in February 2023 to receive the womb from her sister Amy Purdie, 42, a former primary school teacher, who is mother to two girls aged 10 and six.
Several months later, one of the stored embryos was transferred via IVF to Mrs Davidson.
Amy, who weighed 4.5lb, was delivered several weeks early in the planned 90-minute Caesarean section, to ensure a safe, hospital-based delivery.
Mrs Davidson and her baby stayed in hospital for about a week to establish breastfeeding.
She added: “Lots of womb transplants fail in the first two weeks so even just to get to that point was amazing, and having my first period was really amazing, because it showed it was working.
She said it was an easy pregnancy, adding: “I was pretty lucky, I didn’t really have much nausea at all.
“I had a bit of bleeding early on, which was a concern, but actually it sort of self-resolved at about 14 weeks. And I was getting regular scans every two weeks.
“I felt like I had energy right up to the point I delivered.
“I was still very active and I loved the third trimester because you’ve got a bump, you can feel them kicking all the time. It was lovely.”
The lead surgeons for the womb transplant were Professor Richard Smith, clinical lead at the charity Womb Transplant UK and consultant gynaecological surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, and Isabel Quiroga, consultant surgeon at the Oxford Transplant Centre, part of Oxford University Hospitals.
Both surgeons were in the operating theatre when Amy was delivered, and her parents chose her middle name in honour of Miss Quiroga.
Prof Smith, who led the development of womb transplants in the UK, shed tears at the birth.
He said: “I feel great joy actually, unbelievable – 25 years down the line from starting this research, we finally have a baby, little Amy Isabel. Astonishing, really astonishing.”
Miss Quiroga said: “For me, it’s total joy, delight. I couldn’t be happier for Angus and Grace, what a wonderful couple.
“It was overwhelming actually, it remains overwhelming. It’s fantastic.”
Womb Transplant UK has carried out four womb transplants in the UK – the first on Mrs Davidson and then three on women who received wombs from deceased donors.
It has enough cash for two further operations and is fundraising to carry out more.
Kate Brintworth, England’s chief midwifery officer, praised the NHS’ role in the delivery, adding: “I am so delighted that Grace, Angus and their whole family have been able to welcome the miracle of Amy to the world.”
Health Secretary Wes Streeting told LBS Radio that the news was a “medical breakthrough”.
And he said that womb transplants could “possibly” be available on the NHS in the future.
Asked whether the procedure would ever be provided by the NHS, Mr Streeting told Times Radio: “Well quite possibly”.
He added: “I mean, we have fertility treatment available and there are some people in our country and some aspiring parents who are not able to conceive.
“And that can be a really difficult moment in people’s lives and relationships, and that’s why novel medical research – IVF, for example – has been game-changing for people who otherwise would not have been able.”
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