EXCLUSIVE ‘I’ll do whatever it takes: Jessica Alves, 38, has travelled to Brazil to become the FIRST known transgender woman to undergo a risky womb transplant to have a baby
- The TV personality told MailOnline she is willing to undergo the risky surgery, despite the fact it has never officially been performed on a transgender woman
- Jessica claimed she believes some transgender women have had the surgery in Brazil, and she is having tests before doctors allow her to have the procedure
- Womb transplants, which cost £50,000 per operation, were developed to allow women to carry a baby if they were born without a womb
- Doctors now say that advances in womb transplantation mean it’s theoretically possible for a trans woman to give birth after the surgery
- However MailOnline has learned it would be impossible for a transgender woman to fall pregnant naturally after the transplant
- Transplant operations do not involve connecting the women’s uteruses to their fallopian tubes, so they are unable to become pregnant naturally
- Instead a woman would have to undergo IVF if they wished to have a child
- It comes after Jessica told MailOnline that she’s ‘desperate’ to lose her virginity and become a mother following her sex change surgery
Jessica Alves has revealed she’s travelled to Brazil in the hope that she can become the first transgender woman in history to have a womb transplant.
The TV personality is convinced the surgery will mean she will ovulate and have a baby through intercourse, although this has been disputed by doctors because her new uterus would not be connected to her fallopian tubes.
It is possible that Jessica could fall pregnant through IVF if she decided to go through with the £30,000 transplant.
Currently there has never officially been a successful womb transplant performed on a transgender woman, but Jessica claimed that several women have privately undergone the operation in Brazil.
EXCLUSIVE: Jessica Alves, 38, has revealed she’s travelled to Brazil in the hope that she can become the first transgender woman in history to have a womb transplant
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Jessica confirmed she is now booked in to undergo the transplant, but must still undergo various tests and exams.
The star added that while her doctor, who wishes to remain anonymous, is satisfied she can have the surgery, she will not go through with it if they decide it’s not safe.
Jessica also stated that she was hoping to fall pregnant naturally following a womb transplant, but MailOnline has since learned that this is not possible.
She said: ‘I was having a lot of exams in Turkey to see if I could have the surgery, I could have had it in Turkey, but I changed my mind, I thought I might as well just come to Brazil where my family are.
‘Whatever it takes’: The TV personality exclusively told MailOnline she is hoping to have one of her frozen sperm fertilised so she can fulfil her dream of having a child
‘There are some very good doctors here that could hopefully do it. The surgery is do-able, the same way that surgery is done on a biological woman. To a transgender woman is is exactly the same thing.
‘To get pregnant I need to have IVF treatment after the surgery. To be honest I don’t know the success rate, because there’s aren’t many reports about it, people have done it but they’ve done it very quietly.
‘Maybe I’m the first person in the world to do it, but I believe there are some who have had the surgery done but they just don’t talk about it.
‘To be honest I don’t know the success rate because there aren’t many reports about it, people who have done it have done it very quietly, in other words maybe I’m the first one in the world doing it. ‘
Jessica added that she believes several women in Brazil have had the procedure, but they ‘don’t talk about it.’
Daring: The star added that while doctors are satisfied she can have the risky surgery, she will not go through with it if they decide it’s not safe
IS IT POSSIBLE TO TRANSPLANT A WOMB INTO A TRANSGENDER WOMAN?
There has only ever been one documented case of a transgender woman having a uterus transplant – but she died from complications just months later.
Transplant operations do not involve connecting the women’s uteruses to their fallopian tubes, so they are unable to become pregnant naturally.
It means trans women who undergo the surgery are also unable to conceive naturally, but experts say it is at least theoretically possible to impregnate a trans woman using IVF.
Danish artist Lili Elbe, one of the earliest known recipients of gender reassignment surgery, became the first trans woman to have a womb transplant in 1931.
The 48-year-old had the operation in Germany with the hope of being able to have children with her fiance.
But she developed a post-surgery infection and died from cardiac arrest three months later without being able to conceive.
However, doctors say advances in womb transplantation mean it’s now theoretically possible for a trans woman to give birth after the surgery.
Dr Paulson, president of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, said in 2017: ‘There would be additional challenges, but I don’t see any obvious problem that would preclude it. I think it would be possible.’
One problem doctors face is that the male pelvis would not allow a baby to pass through it because it is too narrow, so a man would have to give birth by caesarean section.
But there was room inside a man to hold a womb, Dr Paulson claimed. He said hormones might have to be given to replicate the changes that go on while a woman is pregnant.
Once the uterus has been transplanted, an IVF embryo would have to be implanted.
Currently in the UK it would be illegal for an IVF clinic to create an embryo for the purpose of implanting it in a man under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008.
Several transgender men – those who were born women and then switched – have already given birth in the UK.
But in those circumstances it was merely a case of retaining the female reproductive organs after they transitioned, rather than having to implant female organs into a male body.
How common are womb transplants?
Womb transplants, which cost £50,000 per operation, are still considered to be an experimental procedure.
Only a handful of biological women around the world have successfully had the operation and a smaller number have been able to give birth to a child.
It is not possible with current medical techniques for recipients of womb transplants to conceive a child naturally and IVF is required.
In total, 42 women worldwide have received transplanted wombs and 11 babies has been born up as a result until May 2017.
In 2014, the first baby born to a woman with a womb transplant was delivered by doctors from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.
A second team at Baylor University Medical Center, Texas, delivered a baby born to a woman with a womb transplant in 2017.
Many teams that perform womb transplants require an upper limit of 35 to 40 years for women and 55 to 65 years for donors. But the effect of age on the success of a transplant is currently unclear.
What are the risks?
Major complications suffered by recipients include organ rejection, urinary tract infections, blood clots, and internal bruising.
Adverse side effects of immunosuppressants, drugs used to reduce risk of the body rejecting the organ, may also lead to other complications.
Womb transplants are predominantly performed with the use of a womb donated from a living woman, although modern organ-freezing techniques have made it possible for deceased donors’ uteri to be used too.
The first baby was born who had been carried to term in a womb transplanted from a dead donor in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2019.
The womb and blood vessels were removed from a 45-year-old woman – herself a mother – who had died of a stroke.
They were then implanted into a new mother, who was born without a womb of her own, in an almost 11-hour operation, and the blood vessels connected to her own.
The women then began to menstruate 37 days after the operation and then had regular periods until she became pregnant seven months later.
An embryo was implanted using eggs which had been taken from her ovaries before the womb transplant procedure and fertilised using IVF.
The baby grew healthily and was born after 35 weeks and three days by caesarean section.
During the caesarean section the woman’s implanted womb was also removed and both mother and baby recovered normally.
She continued; ‘It’s something I want to get done, I’m not afraid of having the surgery, I’ve had so many surgeries throughout the years, this is just another one to me, next week I’m seeing more doctors having more exams and then the organ comes from a donor.
‘I’ll have more consultations and exams but everything’s fine and healthy, so I can have the surgery done.’
Jessica said doctors are happy for her to have the risky surgery, because of the high success rate in biological women who have had the same procedure.
She continued: ‘They’re really positive they really are but there’s not much report about transgender woman getting pregnant after surgery. Biological women have the surgery and the success rate is good.
‘I’m still going to give it a go, the doctors are really positive I can do it. After the surgery I need a lot of follow-up, and doctors can investigate and see how it’s going and everything they can do to get me pregnant.
‘I’m 38 years old, I want to be a mother, I don’t want to be alone really.’
Explaining the procedure, Jessica said: ‘Once I have the womb in I will start to ovulate and I can get pregnant having sex or having a sperm donor obviously I’d like to get pregnant the natural way, I want to do everything as naturally as possible, but if I try that and it doesn’t work I can have a sperm donor, that’s an option as well.’
‘It is a riskless surgery it really is, a biological woman who doesn’t a womb will have the surgery, a transgender woman who has the surgery it’s exactly the same, so please don’t worry about it. I was going to get it done in Turkey but then I changed my mind because I didn’t like the doctors out there.’
‘This doctor has done it previously he’s done two friends of my family and he’s performed on a transgender woman. But I don’t have a date for the surgery yet, I need to have more exams, more tests.’
There has only ever been one documented case of a transgender woman having a uterus transplant – but she died from complications just months later.
Transplant operations do not involve connecting the women’s uteruses to their fallopian tubes, so they are unable to become pregnant naturally.
HOW DOES A WOMB TRANSPLANT WORK?
Womb transplants are still considered to be a groundbreaking procedure, predominantly performed with the use of a womb donated from a living woman.
However in 2019 history was made when a baby was born who had been carried to term in a womb transplanted from a dead donor.
The womb and blood vessels were removed from a 45-year-old woman – herself a mother – who had died of a stroke.
They were then implanted into a new mother, who was born without a womb of her own, in an almost 11-hour operation, and the blood vessels connected to her own.
The women then began to menstruate 37 days after the operation and then had regular periods until she became pregnant seven months later.
An embryo was implanted using eggs which had been taken from her ovaries before the womb transplant procedure and fertilised using IVF.
The baby grew healthily and was born after 35 weeks and three days by caesarean section.
During the caesarean section the woman’s implanted womb was also removed and both mother and baby recovered normally.
It means trans women who undergo the surgery are also unable to conceive naturally, but experts say it is at least theoretically possible to impregnate a trans woman using IVF.
Womb transplants, which cost £50,000 per operation, were developed to allow women to carry a baby if they were born without a womb or have had it removed through illness. Roughly 15,000 women in the UK could benefit.
It has been considered that the procedure could be trialled on those who were born biologically male using the organs of dead donors or women who have since transitioned to become men and had their wombs removed.
In 2019 a clinic in Cleveland became the first to deliver a healthy baby that was carried to term in a womb transplanted from a dead donor.
Prior to this, more than a dozen women had given birth after womb transplants, mainly from living donors.
In 2019 it was reported that experts were investigating whether a womb could be transplanted into a transgender woman who was born male.
Writing in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the scientists said it would be perfectly possible to put a womb into a male body so that they could carry a baby to full-term. And they say it may be ‘legally and ethically impermissible’ not to consider performing the procedure.
Several transgender men – those who were born women and then switched – have already given birth in the UK.
But in those circumstances it was merely a case of retaining the female reproductive organs after they transitioned, rather than having to implant female organs into a male body.
Six months after the surgery and the womb has healed, a donated egg would be fertilised with the transgender woman’s own sperm and the embryo implanted. The baby would then be delivered by caesarean section.
In 2019 surgeon Christopher Inglefield, founder of the London Transgender Clinic, said he believes transgender women deserve a uterus implant.
He said the procedure is ‘essentially identical’ to the one performed on women.
Dr Inglefield, who appeared in ITV’s Transformation Street, told The Mirror: ‘This pioneering birth is extremely important for any trans female who would like to carry her own child.
‘Because once the medical community accept this as a treatment for cis-women with uterine infertility, such as congenital absence of a womb, then it would be illegal to deny a trans-female who has completed her transition.’
There are currently no regulations in place to prevent a trans women from receiving IVF if they do receive a transplant.
Dr Inglefield says ‘harvesting’ the womb from the donor is tricky as surgeons must not damage arteries and veins to the uterus.
Lili Ilse Elvenes was the first transgender woman in history to receive a womb transplant in the final stage of her sex reassignment surgery in 1931.
However her immune system rejected the transplanted uterus, and she died of cardiac arrest three months after the procedure.
It comes after Jessica told MailOnline that she’s ‘desperate’ to lose her virginity and become a mother by whatever means necessary following her sex change surgery.
She said: ‘I am desperate to lose my virginity after my sex change surgery and I have been on the hunt for the right guy, but no luck.
‘I’ve been using Tinder in order to chat to those who are supposed to be a match but I haven’t been very lucky.’
Risky: Jessica said doctors are happy for her to have the groundbreaking surgery, because of the high success rate in biological women who have had the same procedure
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