30-year-old Emelie Eriksson was born without a womb.
Fifteen years ago, when her period failed to start, Eriksson went to see her doctor. Tests revealed her medical condition and told her that she would never be able to have her own children.
Eriksson had resigned herself to this fate – until she heard about pioneering research conducted by Professor Mats Brannstrom in Sweden about six years later.
Professor Brannstrom had already spent almost a decade trying to create organs from stem cells and conducting womb transplants in smaller animals. He was hoping to progress to human test subjects soon.
Eriksson reached out to Professor Brannstrom and offered to be one of his first womb transplant subjects. She wanted to have a child and was willing to take the chance.
Her family – husband Daniel Chrysong and mother Marie Eriksson – were in full support.
That was when Marie decided to do something more significant than simply offer moral support. She offered to donate her womb to her daughter.
“I'm so old, I don't need my womb and I don't want any more children,” Marie explained. “This is [Eriksson’s] only chance to have a child and [she] should take it.”
Just over two years ago, Professor Brannstrom successfully transferred Marie’s healthy womb into Eriksson’s body. Not long afterward, Eriksson and her husband gave birth to their son, Albin.
Albin is the first baby to be born successfully from a transplanted womb. It’s like “science fiction,” Eriksson admitted. She never believed that something so radical – she and her son being born from the same womb thanks to a womb transplant procedure – would become possible in her lifetime.
Eriksson, her husband, mother, and son are all currently lliving happily together in Sweden. She hopes that her story and the medical progress that made it possible will inspire more women around the world to not lose hope.
