Abu Dhabi: A healthy baby boy born to an Emirati from Dubai on Tuesday is being hailed as a miracle: Little Rashid is the first baby to be conceived by and born to a mother whose ovarian tissue had been frozen before she reached puberty.
While there are more than 60 recorded cases worldwide of babies born after ovarian tissue transplant, 24-year-old Moza Al Matroushi is the first woman who underwent the transplant using tissue that was removed before the onset of puberty, Dr Sara Matthews, consultant gynaecologist and fertility specialist at the Portland Hospital in London, told Gulf News.
Having delivered her son at the hospital, Al Matroushi said all of this “is like a miracle”.
“No other person has had ovarian tissue transplanted 14 years after it was first frozen, and this is the first case in which ovarian tissue taken before puberty has restored fertility in an adult woman. It has been a long road, but she now has a healthy baby boy. And this success opens the doors for much more research into tissue freezing and transplantation,” Dr Matthews said.
“It was also very far-sighted for her mother. She insisted, in 2001, when [Al Matrooshi] was just nine, that her daughter’s ovarian tissue be frozen before a bone marrow transplant just so that she would have a chance at starting a family down the line,” she added.
Moza Al Matroushi was diagnosed with beta thalassaemia, an inherited blood disorder, at a young age. After one of her similarly affected younger brothers succumbed to the disease, her parents decided to get her a bone marrow transplant.
To destroy all the affected blood cells before her bone marrow transplant, Al Matroushi, who was just nine years old at the time, had to undergo chemotherapy. There was a 99 per cent chance that this would damage her ovarian function, so doctors suggested she freeze her ovarian tissue.
Al Matroushi’s right ovary was removed via keyhole surgery by a team of specialists at the University of Leeds. It was cut into seven two-millimetre-thick slivers and frozen in liquid nitrogen at a temperature of -195 degree Celsius. She then underwent the treatment and the bone marrow transplant cured her thalassaemia.
After her marriage, Al Matroushi and her husband, Ahmad, tried to get pregnant to no avail. She then approached Dr Matthews in 2014.
“Her remaining ovary was failing and she was menopausal at the age of 22 years. We tried stimulating the ovary for four months but in the end, no eggs appeared to be left. So we looked into options for an ovarian transplant,” Dr Matthews recounted.
Because the ovary had been frozen before the 2004 implementation of the European Union Tissues and Cells Directive, facilities in England were reluctant to transplant it. So in August 2015, Al Matroushi and Dr Matthews flew to Copenhagen for the procedure.
“We transplanted five of the slivers, and soon, her menopause had been reversed and she was getting her periods again. We could have chosen to wait for a normal pregnancy, but decided not to risk it,” Dr Matthews said.
In April, Al Matroushi and her husband underwent in-vitro fertilisation (IVF). Eight mature eggs were collected for the procedure, and they yielded three healthy embryos, of which two were implanted.
“She went to have a straightforward pregnancy, and Rashid was delivered in the 39th week. He was a healthy 3.2 kilograms at birth,” Dr Matthews said.
The doctor said the third embryo has been frozen at present.
“After she has finished nursing, assuming her ovarian function returns to normal, we hope to help her have two to three children,” Dr Matthews said.
