No uterus, ovaries, she still delivers baby
Melvyn Thomas | TNN
India: A miracle baby is what Surat got on Thursday when a 28-year-old woman, who did not have her menses till the age of 20 due to a rare genetic disorder, delivered a baby girl.
The woman gave birth with intracytoplasmic sperm injection of eggs (ICSI) and in-vitro fertilisation (IVF) treatment at the 21st Century Hospital and Test Tube Baby Centre. It is being termed as one of the rarest cases of testicular feminisation syndrome — a genetic disorder that makes XY fetuses insensitive to male hormones. Terming it as a unique case, Dr Pooja Nadkarni Singh of the hospital said, “The genotype of the patient is male with feminine features.”
Meeta Mehta, a resident of Palanpur Patia, is feeling on top of the world having got a child, weighing 3 kg, after eight years of marriage. Three years ago, she had given up hope to conceive after knowing about her genetic disorder. Meeta grew up like a normal girl and married at the age of 20. She had consulted doctors in Ahmedabad and Surat and was put on medication, after which she started having her periods. But the real worry started when she could not conceive.
She decided to go for Karyotyping test, which helps find genetic problems, in 2006. The test report came as a major shock as it showed her genotype as male. The related medical jargon simply meant that she was sterile and could not bear children. In a layman’s language, women with this genetic disorder are born looking externally like normal girls, but they are genetically male with short blindpouch vagina and no uterus, fallopian tubes or ovaries.
In 2008, Meeta consulted Dr Pooja and Dr Poornima Nadkarni. After detailed investigation, it was found that she had a rudimentary uterus and that it was possible to give her a child through ICSI and IVF treatment.