Cancer survivor whose uterus was surgically repositioned inside her gives birth to baby

Talk about a labor of love.

An Israeli woman has delivered a healthy baby after undergoing a rare procedure that involved relocating her uterus to preserve her fertility during cancer treatments.

The operation — performed only a handful of times worldwide — is opening new doors for young women whose fight to survive often shuts them out of motherhood.

The patient, identified only as “A,” is a woman in her early 30s who was diagnosed several years ago with stage 3 colorectal cancer.

Doctors told her she’d need pelvic radiation to beat the disease — but the treatment threatened to permanently damage her uterus and thwart any chance of future pregnancy.

So she made an unthinkable choice — and moved her womb out of the line of fire.

During a six-hour operation, doctors detached her uterus and ovaries from her pelvis and sutured them into her upper abdomen, just above the navel.

“The orientation of the uterus does not change,” said Dr. Ram Eitan, director of the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Rabin Beilinson Medical Center, who performed the surgery in 2022.

“The cervix remains facing downward as it was in the pelvis. This is maintained to prevent kinking of the blood supply to the organ,” he told The Post.

Because of the procedure’s complexity, a surgical robot was used for greater precision — crucial to ensure the uterus would remain functional for pregnancy.

About four months after completing radiation treatments, the woman underwent a second operation — this time in New York, in partnership with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, to return her uterus to its natural position.

“She is completely cancer free,” Eitan said.

When she called to say she was pregnant, it was an “incredibly emotional moment,” he recalled.

“We realized we had pushed the boundaries of medicine to the maximum,” said Eitan, who also delivered the baby by C-section.

“It is rare and deeply inspiring to see a woman who has faced cancer, radiation and uterine transposition — and still manages to conceive and bring life into the world,” he added. 

The uterine transposition technique was first pioneered in Brazil. To date, only about 18 women worldwide have had the procedure — and the Israeli patient is just the sixth to give birth afterward.

Memorial Sloan Kettering performed the first uterine transposition in the US in December 2020, on a woman diagnosed with rectal cancer just before her 27th birthday.

Since then, only a few other US hospitals — including Johns Hopkins and the Miami Cancer Institute — have begun offering the cutting-edge procedure.

In March 2024, Dana Vergara became the first American woman to give birth following the surgery, also at Memorial Sloan Kettering.

“He’s been a little champ. A totally healthy baby,” Vergara said of her son, Hudson. “The doctor is so impressed and has no concerns.”

While cancer rates have fallen across most age groups in the US, they’re steadily rising among young women by 1% to 2% each year, according to Johns Hopkins.

This increase includes gynecological cancers like cervical and endometrial, as well as gastrointestinal cancers such as colorectal — many of which require pelvic radiation as part of treatment.

Experts say this trend is likely to boost demand for fertility-saving procedures like uterine transposition.

“I’d do that surgery again in a heartbeat,” Vergara said. “And I’d recommend it to any woman in a similar situation.”