40-Year-Old Fetus Found Inside Elderly
Woman
A Colombian woman
who went to a hospital in Bogota, complaining of stomach pains, got the
surprise of her life when doctors saw an X-ray and discovered a 40-year-old
calcified fetus -- or lithopaedian -- inside her 82-year-old body.
Lithopaedian, also
known as stone baby, is a very rare syndrome that happens when the fetus grows
outside the uterus and inside the abdomen. Indeed, the phenomenon occurs only
once in every 11,000 pregnancies. If the fetus becomes so large that it cannot
be absorbed back into the body, it mummifies, with a layer of calcium
protecting the mother's body from the dead tissue of the baby. Usually the
woman has no idea a calcified fetus is inside her.
The Colombian woman
will now undergo surgery so that the fetus can be removed.
In another case, in
2009, Huang Yijun, 92, of southern China, delivered a child which she’d been
carrying for more than half a century.
At the time, Dr
Natalie Burger, an endocrinologist and fertility specialist in Texas, explained
that lithopaedions began as ectopic pregnancies -– a condition where the
fertilized egg becomes stuck as it travels to the womb and develops outside of
the uterus.
She told NBC News: “Usually an ectopic pregnancy will mean a
[fallopian] tubal pregnancy, but in a small
percentage of cases, the pregnancy can actually occur in the abdominal cavity
-- in places like the bowel, the ovary, or even on the aorta.
“These are very
rare locations and they can be very dangerous.”
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