14 DAY TRIAL // Doctors at The Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia can now take pride in having achieved a world first. Long story short, they've helped a woman with no ovaries become pregnant.
What's more, the 24-year-old woman, named Vali, is said to be expecting twin girls.
Sources say that, about seven years ago, the woman was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. At that time, doctors decided that it would be best if they surgically removed her ovaries.
At Vali's request, they performed the surgery but did not dispose of the ovaries in their entirety. On the contrary, they held on to some healthy ovarian tissue which they deposited in a freezer.
Not long ago, they implanted this ovarian tissue into the 24-year-old woman’s abdominal wall. The tissue did not only survive in this new environment but, when stimulated, it also produced two eggs.
Doctors collected these eggs and fertilized them in vitro. Later on, they implanted them inside Vali's uterus. Both the eggs survived, and began to gestate.
By the looks of it, the woman is now 26 weeks pregnant, and there are no signs that she might not be able to carry the pregnancy to term.
The procedure Vali was subjected to in order to become pregnant is still in its early and experimental phases.
However, fertility experts are confident that, once further investigations are carried out, it might become a common means for infertile women to become mothers.
Commenting on Vali's pregnancy, fertility specialist Kate Stern stated as follows:
“We have proven that ovarian tissue can still work and function normally outside the pelvis, which is its normal environment. For patients who have severe pelvic disease where we can't put the tissue back, we can now offer these patients the realistic chance of getting pregnant.”
“It makes me quite convinced that the optimal way for preserving fertility will be taking ovarian tissue,” specialist Gab Kovacs also said.