The world is full of badness: disease, death and destruction. Sometimes it's hard to believe that good things happen - but they do! This book will be full of all the stuff we never get to see on the TV screens, all the happy news! Acts of kindness...
A 24 year old woman is thought to be the first person in the world to have a baby after having an ovary frozen before puberty and has now given birth after doctors restored the ovarian tissue.
Moaza, whose son was delivered privately in a hospital in London, stated: "It's like a miracle. We've been waiting so long for this result - a healthy baby." The mother, who is originally from Dubai was born with an inherited blood disorder known as beta thalassaemia, which is fatal if left untreated. She required chemotherapy which damaged her ovaries and also received a bone marrow transplant from her brother. Prior to treatment - and when she was only nine years old - she had her right ovary removed and the tissue frozen. Fragments of the ovarian tissue were mixed with cryo-protective agents and carefully reduced to a temperature of - 196 degrees before being stored in liquid nitrogen.
The tissue was transplanted back into her last year. Surgeons in Denmark returned five pieces of the tissue, where four were stitched onto her failed ovary and one on the side of her uterus.
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Because of the removal of the ovary, Moaza had been going through an early menopause, but after the transplant, her hormone levels returned to normal and she began ovulating - her fertility was perfectly restored. The couple decided to go through IVF treatment in order to maximise their chances of having a baby - eight eggs were collected, three embryos were produced and two were implanted.
Moaza said: "I always believed that I would be a mum and that I would have a baby. I didn't stop hoping and now I have this baby - it is a perfect feeling."
She also expressed gratitude for her mother whose idea it was to preserve her ovarian tissue so that she may have a family in the future.
Dr Sara Matthews, who conducted the fertility treatment, said: "Within three months of re-implanting her ovarian tissue, Moaza went from being menopausal to having regular periods again. She basically became a normal woman in her 20's with normal ovary function."
Matthews, said she was overjoyed for the family - and delighted by the hope it offered to others too.
"This is a huge step forward. We know that ovarian tissue transplantation works for older women, but we've never known if we could take tissue from a child, freeze it and make it work again."
Professor Helen Picton, who leads the division of reproduction and early development at the University of Leeds, carried out the ovary freezing.
She stated "This is incredibly encouraging. Moaza is a pioneer and was one of the first patients we helped back in 2001, before any baby had been born from ovary tissue preservation. Worldwide more than 60 babies have been born from women who had their fertility restored, but Moaza is the first case from pre-pubertal freezing and the first from a patient who had treatment for beta thalassaemia."
Moaza still has one embryo in storage as well as two remaining pieces of ovarian tissue and she definitely plans to have another baby in the future.
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Researchers in Leeds have been at the forefront of ovarian tissue freezing. In 1999, scientists from Leeds were incredibly important in performing the world's first transplant of frozen ovarian tissue. Professor Picton states that "in Europe alone, several thousand girls and young women now have frozen ovarian tissue in storage".
A cancer patient from Edinburgh was the first woman from the UK to give birth following an ovarian tissue transplant. Last year, a woman in Belgium gave birth using tissue frozen when she was 13. Unlike Moaza, she had begun going through puberty when her ovary was removed.
The first case of a women giving birth following transplantation of her own ovarian tissue was documented in Belgium in 2004.
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This is an incredible accomplishment in the name of science and gives hope to many young girls and women who may want to start families, but risk their chance to do so because of treatment for cancer and other immune disorders. This is a beautiful story of success and hope and all the little cute babies,
