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TexasTowelie

(112,456 posts) Wed Jun 10, 2015, 01:31 AM Jun 2015

Woman gives birth after transplant of ovarian tissue

LONDON -- A woman who had ovarian tissue removed and frozen during childhood has given birth to a baby after the tissue was successfully transplanted back into her, enabling her to get pregnant.

The woman, now 27, was only 13 when doctors stored some of her tissue because she was about to have a medical treatment that likely would leave her infertile. Doctors described her case as the first time tissue was removed from someone so young and ultimately led to the birth of a healthy baby.

Born in the Republic of Congo, the woman was diagnosed with sickle-cell anemia, a serious blood disorder, when she was five. She was not identified by the doctors. At age 11, she and her family moved to Belgium and the girl was so sick her doctors gave her a bone marrow transplant from her brother.

Chemotherapy is sometimes used to help stimulate blood production in children with sickle cell anemia, but it risks damaging the ovaries. So the doctors removed part of her right ovary when she was 13 and froze several fragments. The girl hadn't started menstruating but there were other signs she had begun puberty.

Read more: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/nation-world/world/article23639659.html

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Woman gives birth after transplant of ovarian tissue (Original Post) TexasTowelie Jun 2015 OP

I'm really impressed. My only concern would be that she would transmit sickle cell to her kids.... Hekate Jun 2015 #1

I think sickle cell is recessive laundry_queen Jun 2015 #2

Hekate

(90,837 posts)

1. I'm really impressed. My only concern would be that she would transmit sickle cell to her kids....

Reply to TexasTowelie (Original post)

Wed Jun 10, 2015, 01:41 AM

Jun 2015

....unless she were willing to have her embryos be tested.

All the best to her and her baby!

laundry_queen

(8,646 posts)

2. I think sickle cell is recessive

Reply to Hekate (Reply #1)

Wed Jun 10, 2015, 02:08 AM

Jun 2015

Like cystic fibrosis, in which case if the father wasn't a carrier of the sickle cell gene, her children wouldn't have the disease, but they would be carriers. If the father was a carrier, then there would be a 50% chance the child would get the illness as well. I haven't researched it but I'm guessing, like CF, the most common mutations are easily tested for, which they would probably do on the father before having kids. If the father was negative, no testing on the fetus would be needed (I don't think there was any in vitro here, so no embryos to be tested.)

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