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MEERUT: In what is being billed as a one in a million case, doctors helped a woman, who was termed ’genetically male’ with a rare chance of conceiving, deliver two healthy babies. The babies, a boy and a girl, whose birth doctors said was nothing short of a medical miracle, were born on Saturday after Maya Sharma (name changed) went through a series of treatment procedures spread over three years to realize her dream of becoming a mother. "This is something similar to a male delivering twins", said Dr Sunil Jindal, the infertility specialist who administered the treatment.
 
Maya’s condition is medically referred to as XY gonadal dysgenesis, in which the person has external female characteristics but non-functional gonads or ovaries, the ovum-producing reproductive organs, which are necessary for natural reproduction. She never menstruated, or experienced puberty, leading doctors who conducted a karotyping (chromosomal study) on her to diagnose her as having XY(male pattern) chromosomes. The only saving grace, though, was that she had an infantile uterus, which could be developed by hormonal and endocrinal treatment. Doctors decided to give this a shot to fulfill her aspiration of having children. "The challenge before us was to develop the uterus to a level that it could carry a pregnancy," recalled Dr Jindal.

Embryos were developed with donor eggs and implanted in the uterus. Once she became pregnant, doctors had to counter another problem. "Our biggest challenge was how to administer this pregnancy for nine months in a body not designed for it," said Dr Anshu Jindal, medical director at Jindal Hospital, where the babies were delivered.
 
The success of the procedure has prompted the treating doctors to present the case at the annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology which is to be held in Portugal in June. Meanwhile, infertility experts, too, are quite upbeat at this rare development. "There have only been 4-5 cases recorded throughout the world where females with this condition have been able to give birth to babies. So this is indeed a tremendous achievement," said Dr KD Nayyar of the Indian Fertility Society.
 
Agreed Dr Neena Malhotra, professor at the department of gynecology and obstetrics at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), "It is indeed a rare development. Even in normal females, assisted reproduction has a success rate of only 35-40 per cent while this case pertained to a woman with no history of a menstrual cycle, making a successful pregnancy all the more challenging."