New Delhi - A baby in India was born "pregnant" with his
half-formed twin in a rare case that has astonished the medical
fraternity in the country.
Some mass with the presence of bones was discovered early July in the
then foetus' abdomen during a routine scan of the 19-year-old
pregnant mother, said radiologist Bhavna Thorat.
"In the post-natal scans, we spotted another half-formed baby with a
brain, arm and legs in a foetal sac in the baby's abdomen," Thorat
said over phone.
"The mother had conceived twins. But here a twin got enveloped in the
body of another twin, leading to a condition of a host baby and its
parasitic twin, who grew up to 13 weeks and then stopped," she said.
This was a rare case of foetus-in-foetu, a congenital anomaly in
which a malformed and parasitic foetus grows inside the body of a
baby, Thorat added.
After his birth on July 20 at Bilal Hospital in Thane, near the
western city of Mumbai, the baby underwent surgery last week to have
the foetus removed.
Paedatric surgeons at a separate hospital operated on July 25 to
remove the unborn twin, a male about 7 cm in length and weighing
around 150 grams.
"There were no complications. Both the mother and the baby boy are
still admitted but are in good health," gynaecologist Neena Nichlani
told dpa.
Nichlani and Thorat said only 100 such cases have been documented
worldwide. A foetus-in-foetu is estimated to occur once in every
500,000 live births, Thorat said.