WEDNESDAY, Feb. 24 (HealthDay News) — Doctors are reporting a medical first: A Danish woman has given birth separately to two children after undergoing a transplant of ovarian tissue that was taken out of her body, frozen and then implanted after she underwent successful bone cancer treatment.
Mrs. Stinne Holm Bergholdt of Odense, Denmark, gave birth in 2007 after fertility treatment and again in 2008, her doctor reported in the Feb. 25 online issue of the journal Human Reproduction. Both children are girls.
“This is the first time in the world that a woman has had two children from separate pregnancies as a result of transplanting frozen/thawed ovarian tissue,” her doctor, Claus Yding Andersen, said in a news release from the journal’s publisher. “These results support cryopreservation of ovarian tissue as a valid method of fertility preservation and should encourage the development of this technique as a clinical procedure for girls and young women facing treatment that could damage their ovaries.”
Worldwide, nine children have been born after receiving transplants of the mother’s own ovarian tissue, according to the report.
Part of Bergholdt’s right ovary was removed and frozen prior to chemotherapy, which caused menopause. She became pregnant after ovarian tissue was transplanted into her body, and her ovary began to function again.
In the news release, Bergholdt, who’s now 32, said the second pregnancy wasn’t expected. “It was a very nice surprise to find out that my body was now functioning normally and that we were having a baby without having to go through the fertility treatment. It was indeed a miracle!”
More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on ovarian cancer.