Laura Boot-Handford

I am fundraising for the Uterine Transplant UK Charity by running in the Eastbourne half marathon on 03/03/13. Uterine Transplant UK are an amazing team trying to make it possible to transplant a womb from one woman to another. They need to raise £500,000 to complete their research and carry out the first five transplants.

There are many thousands of women in the UK who either do not have a viable womb or who have had their womb removed following cancer or another serious illness. Here are a few facts:

.One in every 5000 women in the UK is born without a womb. .In 2007 alone there were 2,200 women aged between 15 and 44 who were born without a womb. .In the 15 to 24 year old age group in the UK, around a thousand young women have hysterectomies every year. .Hysterectomy is still a commonly performed procedure for the treatment of cervical cancer - many of these cancer victims have not completed their families when they have their wombs taken away.

Occasionally, wom... more

I am fundraising for the Uterine Transplant UK Charity by running in the Eastbourne half marathon on 03/03/13. Uterine Transplant UK are an amazing team trying to make it possible to transplant a womb from one woman to another. They need to raise £500,000 to complete their research and carry out the first five transplants.

There are many thousands of women in the UK who either do not have a viable womb or who have had their womb removed following cancer or another serious illness. Here are a few facts:

.One in every 5000 women in the UK is born without a womb. .In 2007 alone there were 2,200 women aged between 15 and 44 who were born without a womb. .In the 15 to 24 year old age group in the UK, around a thousand young women have hysterectomies every year. .Hysterectomy is still a commonly performed procedure for the treatment of cervical cancer - many of these cancer victims have not completed their families when they have their wombs taken away.

Occasionally, women who are delivering a baby may suffer from a life threatening bleed (post-partum haemorrhage). One or two women in every hundred have their womb taken away because no other measure is able to stop the bleeding. Overall in the UK around 15,000 women of child bearing age have no womb.

Not having a womb is called Absolute Uterine/Womb Factor Infertility. Women diagnosed with this condition prior to starting a family are faced with never being able to experience the joy holding their own baby in their arms and have the family they wish for. If diagnosed after having a child(ren), they may not be able to complete their family if they so wish. Being infertile because you have no womb may not be a life threatening situation, but for some, this can at best adversely affect the quality of their lives and at worst can damage or destroy relationships and lead to many forms of illness.

The only two options which are available for these women are adoption and surrogacy, both acceptable options but fraught with moral, ethical and financial difficulties. The team at Uterine Transplant UK has experienced many women facing such a situation and has been approached by others asking about the potential for womb transplantation, either for themselves or a close relative.

They have set up a new charity, Uterine Transplantation (UK) to help achieve their goal of developing a practical and safe operation and procedure which will allow women, who were either born without a womb or have lost their womb as a result of illness, to have their own child.

Apart from helping to raise funds to enable Uterine Transplant UK to continue their research, the charity will also work to make more people aware of this currently untreatable infertility which causes so much distress to a large number of women and their partners. The charity, through their website and its activities, will also show how the research is progressing, the benefits and the progress being made.

The vast majority of the costs of research have been borne by the team members themselves but in these crucial final stages, more help is needed to continue the research.

I am fundraising for Uterine Transplant UK as I believe that a lot of women would benefit from this. There are many reasons that have been highlighted why a woman might want a transplant. I myself would love to complete my family by undergoing this procedure. Unfortunately after my first child I suffered with a massive haemorrhage and needed a life saving hysterectomy so I am unable to have any more children currently.

Could you help many women like me fulfil their dreams by donating whatever you are able to, to a very good cause.

For further information please check out their website

http://www.wombtransplantuk.org