LONDON — The first womb transplants are set to take place in the UK next year, following ethical approval and successful similar procedures in Sweden.

A clinical trial of 10 transplants will begin in the spring, with the first baby from a transplanted womb potentially being born in late 2017 or 2018, the BBC reports.

Baby Vincent made history last October, when he was born from a transplanted womb in his 36-year-old mother in Sweden, donated from a friend in her 60s. He was the world's first, but three more have since been born in the country from wombs transplanted from living donors.

In the UK, the wombs will come from "brain dead" donors whose hearts are still beating, according to Dr. Richard Smith, a consultant gynaecologist at the Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital in London. He's heading up the transplant team after working on the project for 19 years.

The operation will cost around £40,000 ($60,000) and will take around six hours. The recipient will need to take immunosuppressant drugs the whole time the womb is in her body, but the womb can be removed once the baby is born.

Vincent, the world's first baby born in a transplanted womb, shortly after birth. Image: Ben Jary/Associated Press

One in 5,000 women in the UK are born without a womb, while others have theirs removed due to cancer.

Over 300 women approached the Womb Transplant UK team to sign up for the surgery, and 104 were deemed to meet the criteria. To be selected for the trial they had to be 38 or under, of a healthy weight, and with a long-term partner.

While the trial now has ethical approval, it still needs £500,000 in funding, and has raised only £40,000 so far. Donations can be made here.

A doctor in the U.S. said last year that the process would be much more expensive on the other side of the Atlantic and potentially less popular.

Dr. Antonio Gargiulo, a specialist in infertility and reproductive surgery at Boston's Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the Boston Globe it would be a risky undertaking and could cost some $300,000. Increased access to surrogacy in the U.S. (which is illegal or restricted in many European countries) would also dampen demand, he added.