The woman went to the hospital because she was suffering from stomach pains. The doctors realized that she had a calcified fetus in her abdomen. They failed to save her. Explanations.
This is an extremely rare medical phenomenon. Some doctors have the opportunity to observe unusual and sometimes unsuspected medical cases throughout their careers. This is particularly the case of these surgeons who removed a fetus from the brain of a baby only one year old or of these doctors who were able to assist a rare case of fetus in fetus, also called parasitic twin or cannibal twin, in a newborn. This phenomenon affects 1 in 500,000 births.
But the medical team of this hospital located in New York was confronted with an even rarer event than the cases cited above. In the United States, a woman in her 50s has gone to the hospital with stomach pains and persistent digestive problems. The patient complained of pain similar to stomach cramps. After all, a fairly banal consultation that never allowed doctors to imagine the ensuing scenario.
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A case recorded 300 times worldwide
After putting the patient through a battery of tests and medical examinations, the medical team managed to identify the source of the pain. Indeed, the doctors diagnosed the presence of a fetus calcified at the intestinal level. A phenomenon of extreme rarity also known as “lithopedion” and more commonly known as a stone baby. This is a “fetus from an ectopic pregnancy, non-fulfilled, non-expelled and calcified which can be tolerated by the body and persist for up to half a century without being diagnosed”can we read on wikipedia.
In other words, the fetus develops in the mother’s abdomen instead of evolving in the maternal uterus. Cut off from the resources necessary for its development, the embryo dies and cannot be subsequently expelled without medical intervention, which leads to its calcification. Note that the cohabitation of the fetus can be tolerated by the body for several decades. A biological phenomenon that has been recorded only 300 times worldwide. In this case, the stone baby compressed the mother’s organs, which resulted in limiting the absorption of nutrients by her body. A diagnosis that prompted doctors to propose surgery to remove the calcified fetus. A proposal that the patient refused, simply wishing to benefit from a medical follow-up of the evolution of the symptoms. Medical supervision was not enough to save the woman who died of malnutrition a year after being diagnosed.