THE FIRST ever baby born after a full ovary transplant has given hope to more than 100,000 infertile UK women.

Susanne Butscher, 39, has been sterile since suffering an early menopause when she was 15, however this week she gave birth to a baby girl after receiving an ovary from her twin sister in a pioneering transplant.

Butscher, who has named her daughter Maja, after the Roman goddess of fertility, underwent the key-hole operation early last year.

The ground-breaking transplant, first revealed in last week's Sunday Times , was performed by Surgeon Dr Sherman Silber from the Infertility Centre of St Louis, in Missouri, USA.

Dr Silber had previously carried out ovarian tissue transplant between twins before but never a whole ovary.

The transplant’s success offers hope to more than 100,000 women in the UK who suffer an early menopause as well as those undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy for cancer.

Unlike conventional IVF treatment an ovary transplant not only allows a woman to conceive “naturally” but also restores hormone levels in women who have suffered an early menopause.

Within five months of the surgery Butscher experienced periods for the first time in 22 years and the osteoporosis she had previously suffered improved as a result of restored hormone levels.

She fell pregnant after a year and on Tuesday Maja was born at by elective caesarean at Portland Hospital in London.

The healthy 7lb 15oz baby is genetically the child of Butscher’s twin sister, Dorothee.

Butscher, who is originally from Germany but lives in the UK with husband Stephen, 40, told one newspaper: “Being the first woman in the world to give birth after a whole ovary transplant hasn’t sunk in yet, but I’m just so grateful to the doctors who enabled this to happen and to my sister, of course.

“I’m so lucky to have had this wonderful opportunity, which has given me a sense of completeness I would never have had otherwise.

“When I saw her for the first time I just cried. She really is a little miracle.”

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