Medical miracle: Danish woman bears kids twice after ovarian transplant

The Danish woman gave birth to two healthy babies in separate pregnancies after an ovarian transplant: one by artificial means and the other naturally, reports ABC News citing Danish researchers.

The mother, Stinne Holm Bergholdt of Odense, Denmark, was diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a cancer of the bone or soft tissue, at age 27 in 2004. She was prescribed chemotherapy that would otherwise have destroyed her fertility. But before undergoing the cancer treatment in 2004, doctors removed 13 strips of ovarian tissue from Bergholdt's right ovary and froze them.

Transplantation of ovarian tissue
After successful completion of her treatment that included multiple sessions of chemotherapy and surgical removal of the rest of the tumor, Bergholdt had six thin strips of her ovarian tissue transplanted back on to what remained of her right ovary, which began to function again after few months.

She underwent mild ovarian stimulation in Andersen's fertility clinic and, with the help of IVF, she gave birth to her first daughter Aviaja in February 2007.

IVF or in vitro fertilization is a fertility treatment in which eggs are fertilized in a laboratory by donor sperm and implanted in the womb.

''We performed IVF [in vitro fertilization] initially, and expected to do that for the second child also," Dr. Claus Yding Andersen, MD, a professor in human reproductive physiology at the University Hospital of Copenhagen, and one of Bergoldt's doctors, tells WebMD in an email interview. ''However, this wasn't necessary and it turns out that maybe we do not need to do assisted reproduction in many of the cases."

Second pregnancy was a shock
Bergholdt and her husband returned to the clinic for more treatments in January 2008, but they were shocked after discovering that she was already pregnant naturally.

Bergholdt, now 32, gave birth to another daughter, Lucca in September 2008.

"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," Andersen said. "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."

Doctors in Denmark are hailing the case as a medical first. The so called miraculous case is reported in the Feb. 25 online issue of the journal Human Reproduction.

Bergholdt’s plan to extend family
Bergholdt, who never expected to have one baby, is now the proud mother of two little daughters--baby Lucca and sister Aviaja. The two girls are among just nine children born worldwide through the transplantation of the ovarian tissue, where ovarian tissue is removed, frozen, and transplanted.

The Danish mother thinks her pregnancies were nothing less than a miracle.

She said: "When I found out I was pregnant for the first time I was very happy and excited – but also very afraid and sceptical since I found it very hard to believe that my body was really working again. But eventually I started to believe that the pregnancy was really happening and began to enjoy every aspect of it.

"The second time it was a surprise to find out I was pregnant since we hadn't been working on it – we thought we'd need assistance like the first time. We had an appointment at the fertility outpatient clinic to talk about the possibility of a second baby, but it turned out that I was already pregnant, naturally. It was a very nice surprise to find out that my body was now functioning normally. It was indeed a miracle."

With two daughters in her family, Bergholdt say she can go for another one in later years. "The girls are still so small and need a lot of attention, but maybe in a couple of years we might think about it again."