A baby girl has become the first child to be born using a donated womb in the United Kingdom. The baby’s mother gave birth to the girl through a womb transplant that her sister donated.
Grace Davidson, 36, was born without a functioning uterus, and received her sister’s womb in 2023, BBC reported. In February 2025, two years after the procedure, Grace gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Amy, in honour of the sister who made it possible.
Grace was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a rare disorder in which the ovaries are functioning but the womb is absent or undeveloped. Initially Grace had hoped her mother could donate her uterus, but the plan was unsucessfull. Her sister, Amy Purdie, later was chosen for the role.
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The transplant surgery took place in 2023 with over 30 medics and around 17 hours in the operation theatre. Baby Amy was born on February 27th, 2025 and the new parents feel “incredible and surreal.” They hope to have another child after which the donated womb will be removed.
The transplant, led by Professor Richard Smith of Womb Transplant UK and consultant Isabel Quiroga, was the first of its kind in the UK. The medical team informed the BBC that they have performed three additional womb transplants with deceased donors since Grace’s transplant. They plan to perform a total of 15 as part of a clinical trial.
The first womb transplant baby was born in Sweden in 2014. Since then, more than a dozen nations, including the US, China, France, Germany, India, and Turkey, have performed about 135 such transplants. There have been about 65 births.
