Brigitte, on the left, and her daughter, Deborah, shortly before the donation and transplant performed at the Foch hospital in Suresnes in 2019. -

© Ibar Aibar / Zone interdite M6 / Nova production

  • Misha was born premature last week in Suresnes but it's already a small miracle: her mother, born without a uterus, was able to get pregnant thanks to a transplant

  • It was his mother, Brigitte, who gave him, without a shadow of a doubt

  • Their story is told in a documentary which will be broadcast in

    Zone Interdite

    , Sunday evening, on M6.

It is a medical case that accumulates the first: Deborah, 34, was the first woman in France to receive a uterus transplant in 2019. Last week, she became the first in France to give birth to a baby thanks to this transplanted uterus.

The young woman, a swimming teacher in Cannes, was born without all of her reproductive organs: she had ovaries and gametes, but no uterus, due to a rare syndrome.

It was only in 2014 that the first such transplant took place.

Since then, around twenty babies have already been born.

The magazine of M6,

Zone Interdite

, followed, for a documentary which will be diffused Sunday evening, the course of Deborah, before the transplant until the birth of the small Misha.

The cameras of the director Ibar Aibar and Nova production of course film the medical teams, Deborah, her husband but also her mother, Brigitte.

It was she who gave him her uterus.

Serene vis-à-vis this protocol still unprecedented in France and while waiting to be able to meet Misha for the first time, she answered questions from

20 Minutes

.

Family organ donation is not uncommon, but in this case it was a first in France.

However, this gift seems to have been obvious to you?

Absolutely.

I've always said it: if one day it could be done to donate my uterus, I wouldn't have to worry.

Now, of course, in this type of operation there is no such thing as zero risk.

So Deborah still wanted to ask her brothers for advice, given the risks, not to mention death.

It was important that everyone was on the same page.

At one point in the documentary which will be broadcast on Sunday in "Forbidden Zone" on M6, you explain that you somehow "wanted" not to have "given" a uterus to your daughter.

Does that mean that you saw your gesture as reparation?

Not at all.

I did not try to "redeem" myself.

But you know, when you give birth to a child, you always feel a little bit responsible for what happens to them.

It's like a child who "goes wrong" we wonder what we missed in terms of his education.

There, it is this syndrome which makes that she was born without a uterus.

We know very well that it is not our fault, it happens to one birth in 4,500, it is very rare… But there is always this little something.

She would have had a kidney problem, I would have felt the same.

Did the medical team see no problem with you being the donor?

In previous uterus transplants that have been performed, in Sweden or elsewhere, it is often the mother who is the donor.

It didn't have to be: it could have been Deborah's sister, but she doesn't;

it could have been a cousin to her, but they are about the same age as Deborah, but you have to be at least 40 years old to be a donor.

Myself, even though I am his mother, I could very well not have been compatible.

And if we hadn't matched, the story would have ended there.

He might have had to wait for one of his aunts to propose to him.

But anyway, Deborah's child is her and her husband's child, I just gave a "little nest".

The transplant took place two years ago, but there was a big setback for the implantation of the in vitro fertilized embryos because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Were you afraid that after so much effort the process would fall apart?

No, proof Deborah still has the womb.

It is not yet removed to avoid complications.

In Sweden, some women who have had a transplant have even had a second child.

And even if they have to do it within six months, they still kept the uterus longer.

It might have been more complicated if the pandemic had arrived at the time of the transplant process: with limited travel, hospitals overloaded.

Anyway, you have to understand that throughout the process we were lucky: between the time we signed the protocol and the time of the transplant, the time to do all the exams took a year.

Health

First birth in France after a uterus transplant

Health

A uterus transplant performed for the first time in France

  • Uterus

  • Birth

  • Health

  • Graft

  • Maternity