Baby girl becomes first child in UK to be born from womb transplant
A baby girl has become the first child in the UK to be born from a womb transplant.
Grace Davidson, who received the transplant in 2023, said the birth of her daughter Amy Isabel was the “greatest gift we could ever have asked for”.
The 36-year-old, from north London, received the donated womb from her older sister, Amy.
It was the first time the procedure had taken place in the UK, and the birth will give hope to thousands of women born without a womb – like those with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome – or whose womb fails to function.
Grace and Angus Davidson with the hospital team at the birth of baby Amy. Pic: Womb Transplant UK/PA
Amy Isabel was named after her aunt, and a surgeon who helped perfect the technique, and was born by planned caesarean section on 27 February at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in London.
Mrs Davidson, an NHS dietitian, said she felt “shock” when she first held her daughter, adding: “We have been given the greatest gift we could ever have asked for.
“It was just hard to believe she was real. I knew she was ours, but it’s just hard to believe.
“It sort of feels like there’s a completeness now where there maybe wasn’t before.”
Aunt Amy Purdie (right) with the happy family. Pic: Womb Transplant UK/PA
Her husband Angus, 37, said: “The moment we saw her was incredible, and both of us just broke down in emotional tears – it’s hard to describe, it was elation.
“It had been such a long wait. We’d been intending to have a family somehow since we were married, and we’ve kind of been on this journey for such a long time.”
Womb transplantation is on the way to becoming an acceptable, life-giving procedure
The birth of Amy Isabel is not just a first for the UK, but an important step towards womb transplantation becoming an established medical procedure.
It was little more than a decade ago that the world’s first baby was born following a womb transplant in Sweden.
And not without eyebrows being raised by some in the world of medical ethics.
Not all womb transplants, whether from a living relative or from a deceased donor, are successful. And not all result in successful or uncomplicated pregnancies.
But the surgical team behind this UK success have achieved a one-for-one: a healthy baby born from the first womb transplant ever performed here.
Amy Isabel joins an estimated 50 other babies and children worldwide now born via a womb transplant.
And she won’t be the last.
Around 100 women in at least 10 countries have undergone the procedure – three transplants have taken place in the UK since Amy’s mother became the first in 2023.
A study of 33 womb transplants in the US found 74% of the transplants remained healthy after a year and 80% of those resulted in a successful birth.
But a womb transplant is unlikely to ever become “routine”.
While the number of eligible women – those lacking a functioning uterus but having healthy ovaries – might number in the low thousands in a country the size of the UK, not all would meet the strict medical criteria needed to maximise the chance of a successful transplant and subsequent birth.
And not all might choose it.
A successful birth following a womb transplant involves three major operations. The first to receive the transplanted womb, a caesarean section to deliver the baby, then a hysterectomy to remove the womb once the recipient mother decides to have no more children.
Given a womb transplant isn’t “life-saving”, ethics guidelines require the procedure to be temporary. The long-term risks of organ rejection, and the drugs needed to prevent it, are considered too great once the womb has served its miraculous function.
Some medical ethicists still question the procedure as a whole, arguing it is unnecessarily risky for both the mother and baby, especially babies are born seriously pre-term and at low birth weight.
However, this latest success, and the increasing number of healthy babies born via the procedure worldwide may change that.
Womb transplantation is on the way to becoming an acceptable, life-giving procedure for women who previously had no hope of carrying a baby of their own.
Mrs Davidson was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser, a rare condition that affects around one in every 5,000 women. It means they have an underdeveloped or missing womb.
Grace with her sister Amy (right) and daughter. Pic: Womb Transplant UK/PA
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 In Vitro Fertilisation (IVF) in central London.
Mrs Davidson had surgery in February 2023 to receive the womb from her 42-year-old sister Amy Purdie, who is a mother to two girls aged 10 and six.
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Several months later, one of the stored embryos was transferred via IVF to Mrs Davidson.
The baby weighed 4.5lbs and was delivered several weeks early to ensure a safe, hospital-based delivery.
Ms Purdie called the birth of her niece “worth every moment”.
Professor Richard Smith and Isabel Quiroga were the lead surgeons for the womb transplant and both were in the operating theatre when Amy was delivered, with her parents choosing her middle name in honour of Ms Quiroga.
Prof Smith, clinical lead at the charity Womb Transplant UK and consultant gynaecological surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, told Sky News that being in the operating theatre when Amy was delivered was “really quite remarkable”.
The medic said: “We’ve waited a very, very long time for this, and there’s been quite a lot of tears shed. Ironically the scariest bit of the day for me was when [Amy’s] mum and dad asked me to hold their baby, which was incredible.”
Ms Quiroga, consultant surgeon at the Oxford Transplant Centre, part of Oxford University Hospitals, told Sky News it was “quite a complex procedure” and “the pressure was immense when we did the transplant”.
But she said it was “totally amazing to see all that effort” and it has “been totally worth it”.
Russell Brand has pleaded not guilty to rape and sexual assault charges as he appeared in court in London.
The British comedian and actor, from Hambleden in Buckinghamshire, was charged by post last month with one count each of rape, indecent assault and oral rape as well as two counts of sexual assault.
The charges relate to alleged incidents involving four separate women between 1999 and 2005.
The 49-year-old, who has been living in the US, was flanked by two officers as he pleaded not guilty to all the charges at Southwark Crown Court today.
Russell Brand appears at Southwark Crown Court. Pic: Reuters
Brand stood completely still and looked straight ahead as he delivered his pleas.
The comedian, who has consistently denied having non-consensual sex since allegations were first aired two years ago, is due to stand trial in June 2026.
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Russell Brand arrives at Southwark Crown Court on Friday
He previously told his 11.2 million followers on X that he welcomed the opportunity to prove his innocence.
The allegations were first made in a joint investigation by The Sunday Times, The Times and Channel 4 Dispatches in September 2023.
As Friday’s hearing finished, Brand replaced his sunglasses before exiting the dock and calmly walking past reporters.
Even as someone who has grown up in the public eye, Tom Daley has vulnerabilities and concerns to finally reveal.
The five-time Olympic medallist has an even greater perspective as the British diver who first competed at the Games aged 14 in 2008, who is now retired and a father of two.
Having grown up in the public eye when social media was still in its infancy, Daley is deeply troubled by the toxicity online, especially for someone with an opinion.
And the 31-year-old has spoken out from a young age – from LGBTQ+ rights to bullying and mental health – but he is ready to go further now.
“There’s lots of things I think we’ll look back on this last five, 10 years of human history as being quite shocking in a way,” Daley said in an interview with Sky News.
Tom Daley competing at Tokyo 2020. Pic: PA
“When social media came to prevalence – and cancel culture and people not being allowed to make any mistakes or be able to share too many opinions – it can be very scary and intimidating for certain groups of people.
“I think it definitely pits lots of people against each other and I think we always have to remember that we’re all in this together at the end of the day.
“And there’s so many more important things – being able to come together as one human race and I know that sounds very like hippie-dippie.
“But it really is as simple as that, about just being kind to each other.
“Where has that kindness and compassion gone because everybody feels like they have something to say about very small groups of people.”
(L-R) Tom Daley and Matty Lee celebrate winning gold in the Men’s Synchronised 10m Platform Final at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Pic: PA
A front row seat to LA 2028
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion revealed he was gay in 2013 and went on to marry Oscar-winning screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.
They now live as a family in Los Angeles – the city hosting the 2028 Olympics.
Tom Daley and Noah Williams took silver at the Paris Olympics last year. Pic: PA
Having retired from diving after a final silver medal at Paris 2024, Daley will have a front row seat to the Games taking place in an America where Donald Trump has seemed to roll back LGBTQ+ protections early in his second presidential term.
“It is scary in some parts of the world how the rights of LGBT people are kind of being reversed or they’re being dangerously threatened,” Daley said when asked about Trump.
Tom Daley and his husband Dustin Lance Black at the Brit Awards 2023. Pic: AP
“It’s something again where minorities have to come together for the greater good because it is scary.
“And you may see someone else’s rights going away and I think it’s important that everybody, especially minorities, come together because it won’t just be one group that gets targeted.
“Once one group has been targeted, it will move on to the next, and the next, and the next.
“I think the most important thing is staying visible. I think lots of people ask, ‘What can you do to be an activist? What can you do to an advocate?’
“I think it’s being truly and authentically yourself. As long as you’re happy, your friends and family are happy, and you’re not hurting anyone else, then I think just being visible is a great form of activism.”
Donald Trump and his wife Melania at his election night rally on 6 November 2024. Pic: Reuters
Trump election victory was a ‘shock’
“For lots of people living in the West Coast bubble, it was like a bit of a shock when Trump won the election in November,” Daley said.
“But I think it’s also given everybody a wake-up call. I just always believe in leading with kindness, care and compassion and trying to make life worth living for every single person.”
Daley knows what it is like to feel targeted for abuse.
The sports star attends a screening in London for Tom Daley 1.6 Seconds. Pic: PA
In a new documentary featuring family video growing up, Tom Daley 1.6 Seconds, there is a sense of disbelief that he gave interviews as a child talking about being bullied in school after his Olympic debut at Beijing 2008.
“I never really saw it back then as something that was strange because it’s something that I had lived and grown up and just was part of how my life existed,” he said.
“But, looking back on it, I kind of was like, ‘Oh my gosh, imagine if it could have all been so different’.”
London 2012 poster boy
During the build-up to London 2012, Daley was the poster boy of the home Olympics.
But he was dealing with bulimia and body dysmorphia in private. It’s still difficult to talk about, knowing people would comment on how he seemed in great shape.
“But that’s not what an eating disorder is,” he said. “An eating disorder is not being able to think about your body, what you eat, what you put into your body rationally.
“And I think that’s something that people don’t necessarily understand with eating disorders, which is why going through that, I went through it alone.
“Because I was embarrassed to be thinking about those things. I didn’t think anybody would believe me.”
To this day, Daley feels people online are dismissive of his concerns. In interviews, he grates when it is pointed out that in retirement he is not fat.
“I’m constantly reminded of that,” he said. “So it’s definitely something that triggered the way that I think about my relationship with food.”
This is not to take away from how fondly Daley looks back on a career that saw him reach the pinnacle with Olympic gold in 2021 at the pandemic-delayed Olympics.
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There is no sign of coming out of retirement again as he did in Paris last year.
“I feel incredibly proud of what I’ve been able to achieve in terms of my perseverance and resilience through lots of different things,” he said. “I do miss being on that diving board.
“It is like there is no other feeling than being on top of a diving board in a competition where you’re putting all of the work that you put in into that 1.6 seconds and I think I will forever miss that.”
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