A baby girl described as a “miracle” has become the first child in the UK to be born to a mother with a donated womb.
Grace Davidson, 36, was born without a functioning uterus due to a rare condition, but in 2023 she underwent a successful womb transplant – the only one of its kind in the UK at the time – with her sister Amy Purdie as the living donor.
In February 2025, two years after the procedure, Grace gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Amy, in honour of the sister who made it possible. The baby, who weighed just over two kilograms (4.5 pounds), was delivered by Caesarean section at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in west London.
Grace and her husband Angus, 37, live in north London but are originally from Scotland. After initially choosing to remain anonymous, the couple are now speaking publicly about their journey and their “little miracle”.
The womb transplant took place at the Churchill Hospital in Oxford in February 2023 and involved a team of more than 30 medics. The surgery lasted around 17 hours and was led by surgeon Isabel Quiroga.
Grace was born with Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) syndrome, a condition where the uterus is absent or underdeveloped, though the ovaries remain functional. When first interviewed by the BBC in 2018, she had hoped her mother might be able to donate her uterus, but that wasn’t possible. Later, in 2019, one of her two sisters, Amy – already a mother of two and not planning more children – was assessed and confirmed as a match.
Before the surgery, both sisters underwent counselling. Grace and Angus also had fertility treatment, resulting in several embryos now in storage. While surrogacy and adoption were options, Grace felt strongly about carrying her own child.
Following the transplant, Grace experienced her first ever period within two weeks and became pregnant on the first attempt at IVF. Feeling her baby’s first kick was, she said, “incredible”, and the pregnancy as a whole was “really special”.
Grace and Angus hope to have a second child using the same transplanted womb, after which the organ will be removed. This will allow Grace to stop taking immunosuppressant medication, which prevents her body from rejecting the womb but can increase cancer risk if taken long term. Once the womb is removed, those risks should return to baseline, according to surgeon Isabel Quiroga.
Grace’s sister Amy says she didn’t feel the sense of loss some women report after a hysterectomy, because she was so moved by the benefits her donation gave to her sister.
The baby’s middle name, Isabel, honours the lead surgeon. Baby Amy’s father, Angus, says naming their daughter after Grace’s sister was an “absolute no brainer”.
Professor Richard Smith, a gynaecological surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare and long-time researcher in womb transplantation, led the organ retrieval team and was present at the birth.
Prof Smith heads the charity Womb Transplant UK, which funded Grace’s transplant operation. All the medical professionals involved donated their time. Each transplant costs around £30,000, and the charity currently has funding for two more.
The surgical team has permission to carry out 15 womb transplants as part of a clinical trial – five using living donors and 10 from deceased donors. Since Grace’s procedure, three additional transplants from deceased donors have taken place, though details remain confidential. NHS Blood and Transplant says extra consent is required for these rare donations.
