It’s a boy! Philly-area couple and Penn Medicine celebrate first birth from uterine transplant program

Jennifer and Drew Gobrecht are barely exaggerating when they call their son “a perfect miracle.”

Benjamin Thomas Gobrecht was conceived using in vitro fertilization and grew inside a womb that was transplanted into his mother more than a year ago at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

On Thursday, the two-month-old infant and his parents were the stars at a press conference held on Penn Medicine’s campus in West Philadelphia. Benjamin is the first baby born as part of Penn’s 2-year-old uterus transplant study, led by obstetrician-gynecologist Kathleen O’Neill and transplant surgeon Paige Porrett. The plan is to do five transplants to see whether the experimental procedure — with its high costs and vocal critics — is practical for some of the estimated 500,000 U.S. women who are infertile because of a missing or nonfunctioning uterus.