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“UK’s Miracle Baby: First Child Born from a Dead Donor’s Womb – The Emotional Story That Will Leave You Speechless!”
A baby boy named Hugo Richard Norman Powell has made medical history as the first child born in the United Kingdom to a mother who received a womb transplant from a deceased donor.Little Hugo arrived safely by planned caesarean section in December 2025 at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in west London, part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust. He weighed 3.09 kg (6 lb 13 oz) at birth and is now thriving at around 10 weeks old. His mother, Grace Bell, a woman in her early 30s from southern England, describes him as her “simply a miracle” and “incredible gift.”Grace was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a rare congenital condition affecting about 1 in 5,000 women, where the uterus (and sometimes the vagina) is underdeveloped or absent. This meant she could never carry a pregnancy naturally. In 2024, she underwent a groundbreaking 10-hour uterus transplant surgery at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, receiving the womb from a deceased female donor whose family provided special additional consent for this type of donation (beyond standard organ donation).
The transplant was part of the pioneering deceased donor womb transplant research programme, initiated and funded by the charity Womb Transplant UK. This program plans a total of 10 such transplants and is approved by the UK’s Health Research Authority. Unlike routine organ donation (covered by the NHS Organ Donor Register or opt-out system), womb donation from deceased individuals requires explicit extra family consent after other organs are agreed upon.After the transplant, Grace began fertility treatment several months later, leading to a successful pregnancy. Both mother and baby are reported to be doing very well post-delivery. Grace expressed profound gratitude to the donor and their family: “Their kindness and selflessness to a complete stranger is the reason I have been able to fulfil my lifelong dream of being a mum.” The donor’s parents have shared their pride in the lasting legacy their daughter leaves behind through this act.This milestone marks the first UK birth following a womb transplant from a deceased donor. Grace is only the second woman in the UK overall to give birth after any womb transplant—the first was in early 2025 via a living donor (from a sister). Researchers believe Hugo is just the third baby born in Europe from a deceased donor womb transplant, with around 25–30 such births reported worldwide to date.
Uterus transplantation remains an experimental but rapidly advancing field, offering renewed hope to women with absolute uterine factor infertility (including those born without a uterus, or who have lost it due to cancer, hysterectomy, or other causes). While living-donor transplants (often from relatives) have been more common historically, deceased donors could significantly expand access by removing the need for a willing living donor and associated risks.Experts hail this as a “huge milestone” in reproductive medicine, demonstrating the safety and feasibility of deceased-donor uterus transplants in carefully selected cases. The success highlights years of research, multidisciplinary teamwork (involving surgeons, fertility specialists, immunologists, and ethicists), and the extraordinary generosity of donors and families.For thousands of women who once believed carrying their own child was impossible, stories like Hugo’s bring tangible hope for the future of family-building through advanced transplant science.
