Woman who underwent 2011 womb transplant 6 weeks pregnant
ANKARA, TurkeyA Turksih hospital says a woman who became the first person to successfully receive a donor womb is now six weeks into a "healthy" pregnancy.
Derya Sert was born without a womb and had one transplanted in August 2011. Using one of her own eggs, doctors placed an embryo into the 22-year-old's womb in March.
A statement from Akdeniz University Hospital on Monday said doctors have monitored a fetal heartbeat and that the pregnancy is going well.
Reuters reported the pregnancy earlier this month.
"Early test results are consistent with pregnancy. The patient is in good health at the moment. We will continue to update on developments in the coming period," Akdeniz University Hospital in Turkey's Mediterranean city of Antalya said to Reuters in an April 12 statement.
A successful birth would provide hope for women who were born without a womb or who lose it to disease.
Last September, doctors at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden performed the world's first mother-to-daughter uterus transplant without complications.
In 2000, doctors in Saudi Arabia transplanted a uterus from a live donor, but it had to be removed three months later because of a blood clot, the Associated Press reported previously.
An estimated one in every 5,000 women is born without a uterus, Akdeniz University Hospital said in 2011 when announcing Sert's case.