New Surgery Lets Cancer Survivors Carry Their Own Babies

When a 28-year-old Swiss woman learned she needed aggressive cancer treatment, she faced a heartbreaking reality: the radiation would save her life but destroy her chance of ever carrying a child.

Then her doctor offered something remarkable. A new surgery could temporarily move her uterus, ovaries, and fallopian tubes to safety during treatment, then put them back afterward.

The procedure worked. Last year, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy named Lucien.

Dr. Daniela Huber, the gyno-oncologist who performed the surgery at Sion Hospital in Switzerland, learned the technique from Dr. Reitan Ribeiro. The Brazilian surgeon pioneered the approach after a young cancer patient pleaded with him to find a way to save her fertility.

The surgery involves carefully stitching reproductive organs to the abdominal wall, tucking them below the ribs and away from the pelvis where radiation targets tumors. The procedure takes two to three hours. After cancer treatment ends, doctors move everything back into place.

It sounds simple, but it's changing lives. Ribeiro performed his first surgery in 2017 on a 26-year-old with a rectal tumor. That woman recently gave birth to her second child, a baby girl.

So far, doctors have performed the surgery around 40 times across countries including the United States, Israel, India, Peru, and Russia. At least eight babies have been born to mothers who had the procedure.

The Swiss patient's cancer treatment worked so well that her tumor became invisible on scans within months. She got pregnant naturally without needing IVF. Though doctors monitored some slower growth late in pregnancy, possibly due to placenta issues, Lucien arrived healthy.

Why This Inspires

For young cancer patients, this surgery offers something beyond survival. It offers choice. In countries like Switzerland where surrogacy is illegal, women who freeze their eggs before treatment have no way to use them. This procedure gives them back the possibility of carrying their own children.

Not every surgery is perfect. One patient's uterus failed after the procedure, and doctors acknowledge risks including organ damage or cancer spread. But teams worldwide are refining the technique and sharing results.

Huber's colleagues were nervous at first. The general surgeon didn't sleep for three days after she proposed the idea. But after watching Ribeiro's surgical videos, he agreed it was possible.

Ribeiro says the experience taught him an important lesson about medicine. Too many doctors told his patients nothing could be done about fertility loss. He refused to accept that answer.

Now young women facing pelvic cancers have a new option, and that number keeps growing.