A 24-year-old woman has given birth in London after doctors restored her fertility using ovarian tissue preserved when she was nine.
Moaza Al Matrooshi is a pioneer. For thousands of women, the birth of her son marks a return to motherhood. Moaza needed chemotherapy when she was nine years old. Doctors removed one of the ovaries because it harms them.
Her right ovary tissue was frozen before the procedure in the hopes that it may one day be used to help her regain her fertility.
She never thought she would be able to give birth. “It’s a miracle that I have my baby now,” she said.
After more than a decade in storage, the frozen tissue was stitched onto Ms. Moaza’s damaged left ovary during surgery in Denmark.
Fergus Walsh, the medical correspondent for the BBC, spoke with Dr. Sara Matthews, Ms. Moaza’s reproductive specialist, about the surgery.
Within three months of the tissue implantation, her hormones levels were back to normal — one of the side effects of destroying the ovaries is premature menopause. Doctors described her as having the ovary function of a woman in her 20s.
To improve the chance of her conceiving a baby, doctors used in vitro fertilization (IVF) to produce three embryos. They implanted two of these into her uterus early last year.
“We’ve been waiting for a long time for something like this, and it’s been a process over the last two years to arrange it,” Dr Matthews said.
“But to see a baby at the end of it all is absolutely wonderful.”
“The pregnancy was totally uncomplicated and a healthy boy Rashid was delivered by C-section,” Dr. Matthews said via email.
“Mum and baby ecstatic and all well.” She said she still had one embryo in storage and kept two pieces of tissue “in the freezer so we can repeat the process if we need to.”
While using patient tissue obtained before puberty to restore fertility is not a novel operation, according to Dr. Matthews, it has never been attempted.
Although the procedure worked, Dr Matthews was hesitant to confirm whether it would be put to widespread use.
“At the moment it’s still regarded as a very experimental procedure, because to date we haven’t had any success,” she said.
“As far as we know there are no previous reports of transplants for pre-pubertal girls where they simply haven’t achieved a pregnancy.
“But to have a case that we know has worked means that it offers great hope for all the young girls who have had their tissue frozen”
No-one knew if tissue from a child would work again in an adult body. Moaza has become the first woman in the world to have a baby using an ovary frozen before puberty.
