The joy of a Chinese couple who just had a baby girl was
short-lived after doctors found the new born pregnant.
The baby girl is said to have a rare, mysterious medical
condition that left her ‘pregnant’ with twins when she was born.
The girl, born to Chinese mainland parents in Queen
Elizabeth Hospital Hong Kong, had to undergo surgery at just three weeks old to
remove them.
The foetuses, 8 to 10 weeks gestated, had legs, arms, a
spine, rib cage and intestines.
Both were also covered in skin one weighed 14.2 grammes and
the other 9.3 grammes – and each had an umbilical cord.
The surgery was successful and the girl was discharged from
hospital eight days later.
The condition, known as foetus in fetu occurs in just one in
500,000 births in the world and less than 200 cases have ever been reported.
Doctors are yet to fully understand what causes the
condition.
Dr Yu Kai-man, a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology,
said: ‘It was almost impossible to
detect during the prenatal check-up, as the embryo inside the baby was too
small.
‘Since it is
impossible for the little girl to have conceived the pregnancy on her own, the
fertilisation of the twin fetuses, of course, belongs to her parents, which has
gone to the wrong place.’
The birth was reported in the Hong Kong Medical Journal
which suggested it was possibly linked to the mother having multiple abortions.
No comments:
Post a Comment