A woman has died after undergoing an operation to remove a fetus that had been calcified for 30 years. The victim, 81 years old and of Brazilian origin, went to the hospital in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul after a fall and there they discovered that she had a serious infection. After a CT scan, the medical team discovered that the woman had a “calcified fetus” in her womb.
That's when the emergency medical team decided to perform surgical removal of the fetus with the aim of controlling the “serious infection” that the woman suffered and that “threatened her life.” Finally, she ended up dying the day after her intervention.
The woman had the fetus for about 30 years, when she was last pregnant. In this sense, her relatives have explained to local media that she was indigenous and that she was very afraid of doctors and tests, which is why she did not usually go to health centers and always resorted to alternative remedies.
Why did the baby calcify?
Once the doctors were able to investigate the cause of why the fetus calcified, they came to the conclusion that the elderly woman suffered from lithopedia. This is a disease very rare which is based on the fact that a woman is carrying a child outside the uterine cavity.
According to the Assisted Reproduction medical portal, the embryo begins its growth during “12 weeks”, where he can no longer survive and dies. Furthermore, the body, instead of absorbing or expelling the fetus, begins to calcify it. In the process, calcium begins to dehydrate the tissue, thus forming the phenomenon called stone baby. This can occur without any apparent symptoms and only an imaging test could reveal its existence.
Typically a stillbirth situation may or may not be detected in time. Medical advances make these situations easier to stop so that abnormal cases such as those in lithopedia do not occur. Although a calcified fetus can last asymptotically for yearsthere are times that severe abdominal pain may be behind this phenomenon.
Uncommon types of pregnancies
Some of the less common pregnancies that may exist, apart from lithopedia, involve more the part of giving birth to the child than the gestation itself. Some are:
- Being born with the amniotic sac intact. This unusual event is known by several names: veiled birth, mantillated baby, or with a toquilla. Typically, the amniotic fluid bag breaks during childbirth, which is traditionally known as water breaking. In some women, it occurs shortly after the first contractions. It is even one of the symptoms of childbirth. But this image is not always like this.
- Ectopic pregnancy. This type of pregnancy does not always cause symptoms, which is why it is difficult to detect in time. It can be serious for the mother and almost always results in the loss of the baby. The causes are not always known, but there are some situations that increase the risk of ectopic pregnancy, which occurs in one in every 200 pregnancies. Some of the symptoms, if present, are: stabbing abdominal pain, small vaginal bleeding and heavy bleeding.
- Surprise birth. In this case, the woman, generally for psychological reasons and disorders, ignores the most obvious symptoms of pregnancy such as lack of period or bulge, and even the baby kicking, and attributes them to other situations, such as problems with the regularity of menstruation, gaining weight from an unhealthy diet or thinking that the baby's movements are bowel movements.