A 38 year old woman declared to be sterile at 15 years of age, will give birth to a baby this week. She received an ovary transplant from her twin sister. This would be the first ovary transplant baby in the world.

The surgery has given hope to more than 100,000 British women who suffer an early menopause. It is also a ray of hope for those women who are undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy for cancer.

On one hand ovary transplant give a chance women to conceive "naturally" at the same time it restores hormone levels in women in menopausal women. This would also help these women in prompting monthly periods and protecting the bones from degeneration due to osteoporosis.

The ovary transplant operation was carried out by Dr. Sherman J. Silber, M. D., and his colleagues from the Infertility Centre of St Louis in Missouri, U. S. The doctors carried out the transplant using keyhole surgery. In a period of 90 days, ovulation started and within five months her hormones were at normal levels.

The microsurgery pioneer, Dr. Silber said, "Reconnecting these blood vessels deep inside the pelvis can be a tactical challenge. The ovarian artery is less than a third of a millimetre in diameter, in fact so small many gynaecologists have never seen it."