26 February 2026
This week came news that the first British baby has been born following a womb transplant from a deceased donor. Baby Hugo was born in December 2025 at Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital in London to mother Grace Bell and her partner Steve Powell.
Grace has Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a condition which affects one in every 5,000 women in the UK, meaning she was born without a womb although she has functioning ovaries. Unable to carry a pregnancy naturally, her only options were surrogacy or a womb transplant. Following a lengthy 10-hour womb transplant operation at The Churchill Hospital in Oxford in June 2024, followed by IVF treatment and embryo transfer at The Lister Fertility Clinic in London, she successfully gave birth by a caesarean section to baby Hugo who reportedly weighed nearly 7lbs. Her womb transplant will be removed when she has completed her family to avoid the need to keep taking immunosuppressant medication.
How rare are womb transplants?
Womb transplants are still rare and experimental procedures. Since 2014 (when the first baby was born following a uterine transfer), more than 100 womb transplants have been reported around the world resulting in the birth of more than 70 babies and this number is set to increase over time.
Grace’s womb transplant is part of a UK clinical research trial where 10 recipients will receive transplants from a deceased donor. Three such womb transplants have reportedly been carried out and baby Hugo is the first resulting baby. This pioneering research programme has been approved by the UK’s Health Research Authority. It is funded by the charity Womb Transplant UK, which is funding one programme involving living donors and a second programme using deceased donors. Each womb transplant reportedly costs approximately £30,000.00 (with surgeons and medical staff receiving no payment). Potential living womb donors undergo in-depth counselling to ensure they understand the risks and rule out coercion. In cases involving a deceased donor, families must provide special consent as womb donations are not covered by the NHS organ donor register (ODR) or deemed consent provisions (which presumes people agree to donate unless they opt out).
The news of baby Hugo’s birth follows news in early 2025 of the birth of baby Amy from the UK’s first living womb donation. Amy’s mother received a womb transplant when her older sister (who already had her own children) donated her womb to her. The BBC reports that a further 5 UK living womb transplants are planned involving close relatives. It is further reported that up to 20 to 30 womb transplants could be carried out in the UK each year in the future.
Who could benefit from a womb transplant?
Looking ahead, womb transplants could expand reproductive choice for a range of women who are otherwise unable to experience pregnancy or give birth to a child. These may include not just those women born with MRKH syndrome, but also those whose wombs have been removed due to a cancer diagnosis, large fibroids, endometriosis, uterine prolapse, abnormal bleeding and severe pelvic inflammatory disease subject to fulfilling access, eligibility and funding requirements. Womb transfers may also, in appropriate cases, offer an alternative to surrogacy.
You can read more about womb (or uterus) transplants in our previous article “The Future of Womb Transplants” (25 November 2024).
Need a fertility or modern family lawyer?
This pioneering work in the field of womb transplants offers hope to women who otherwise would not be able to carry a pregnancy or give birth to a child. Given declining fertility rates around the world, maximising reproductive choice and pathways to parenthood is more important than ever. We offer specialist fertility and family law strategies which help to effectively plan preconception, pregnancy, birth and family life, including:
- Family building options due to impaired fertility including cancer diagnosis, unsuccessful conception, age-related fertility decline, change in gender, delayed parenthood.
- Complex personal and family situations.
- Death of a loved-one and legal issues associated with posthumous storage and use of eggs, sperm and embryos in fertility treatment (e.g. due to an accident or illness).
- Options and legal issues associated with assisted conception involving a co-parent, known donor, identity-release or non-identifiable donor (e.g. legal parentage, parental rights and dispute mitigation).
- Legal and wider aspects of international surrogacy or a UK surrogacy arrangement.
- Difficulties with storage and use of frozen eggs, sperm and embryos in fertility treatment in the UK (e.g. problems with consent).
- Legal issues with import of frozen gametes and embryos into the UK for fertility treatment and surrogacy (e.g. due to anonymous and commercially obtained gametes and embryos engaging UK public policy restrictions).
- Legal issues with the export of frozen gametes and embryos abroad for use in fertility treatment and surrogacy (e.g. consent and storage term difficulties).
- Legal and biological parentage issues and disputes (e.g. concerning DNA testing, direct-to-consumer genetic testing, rectification of birth certificate, declaration of parentage, step-parent adoption, recognition of overseas adoption, parental order).
- Care and upbringing of children following a dispute with an ex-partner, parent, donor or surrogate (e.g. contact, residence, financial arrangements, parental responsibility, specific issue or prohibited steps).
- Expert witness fertility, surrogacy and donor conception law services.
