Local Couple Celebrate Son’s ‘Miracle’ Birth Through Transplanted Uterus

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Benjamin Thomas Gobrecht is the first baby born as a part of Penn's uterus transplant program. Image via Penn Medicine.

A Ridley Park woman recently brought home her two-month-old son, a baby that grew inside a womb transplanted into her more than a year ago at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, writes Marie McCullough for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Jennifer and Drew Gobrecht call their son, Benjamin Thomas, “a perfect miracle.”

Jennifer Gobrecht has a congenital disorder called Mayer-Rokitansky-Kuster-Hauser syndrome and could not carry a pregnancy.

Benjamin is the first baby born under Penn’s two-year-old uterus transplant study, led by obstetrician-gynecologist Kathleen O’Neill and transplant surgeon Paige Porrett.

Penn is conducting five transplants to see if the experimental procedure is practical for the estimated 500,000 U.S. women who are infertile because of a missing or non-functioning uterus.

Drew Gobrecht told the Penn team: “We’ve been given the greatest gift of our lives. We can’t begin to thank you for what you’ve done for our family.”

There have been about 70 uterus transplants worldwide. Benjamin is the eighth uterine transplant birth in the U.S.

The transplanted uterus came from a deceased donor because Penn initially excluded living donors. It now accepts them because data from other programs have shown smaller risks for living donors than expected.

Read more about this promising new medical breakthrough in The Philadelphia Inquirer here.

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