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Pregnancy and motherhood can easily be called one of the biggest miracles of life. There are no two ways about the fact that it is not an easy journey to give birth to a living, breathing human being. This journey comes with so many ups and downs for the expecting mother that it gives her a lot of anxiety and stress. Yet, despite all this, a woman still yearns to bear a child someday. And what makes pregnancy all the more intriguing, and at times scary, is the uncertainty associated with it. Even until the last moment, childbirth that is, no one can predict how it will turn out. While some outcomes are generally expected, some of them catch all of us by surprise, including medical professionals.
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Like the case of a tiny little Chinese newborn girl that came to light recently. What about her? Well, for one, she was already born pregnant! Shocked, aren’t you? Then hold your breath, there’s more to come. Not only was she pregnant, but she was also bearing twins! This happened way back in 2010. A baby girl was born to a couple from Mainland China at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong with what doctors initially believed were two tumors. On further medical investigation, it was found that the tumors were actually fetuses. Both the fetuses were believed to be of 8 and 10 weeks of gestational age respectively. Both had a pair of limbs, a rib cage, a spine, anus, and intestines. However, both weighed differently – while one of them weighed 14.2 grams, the other weighed around 9.3 grams. Both displayed a tiny umbilical cord that was connected to a placenta-like, single mass. The baby girl had to undergo surgery at three weeks to get those fetuses removed. After she made a good recovery, the baby girl was discharged from the hospital after 8 days of the operation.
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Despite being an old case, it came into the spotlight again when it was reported in the Hong Kong Medical Journal in 2015. This abnormality is called ‘fetus in fetu’ and is an extremely rare condition that occurs in only 1 out of 500,000 births around the world. The journal also mentioned that as less as 200 such cases have been reported so far. And as far as regional records go, this was only the second such case (1).
According to the doctors, fetus in fetu is that rare condition in which the embryo is externally fertilized and this type of fetus has very low chances of survival. They explained that the fertilization of the twin fetuses that occurred inside the little girl was in all likelihood that of her parents. In simple words, it was probably a case of fertilization occurring at the wrong place. Since the fetuses were too tiny inside an already small fetus, it became extremely difficult to detect their presence during prenatal ultrasounds. The report said that the cause of this abnormality is still unknown. However, it did suggest that one of the probable reasons that can be attributed to it is the mother having undergone multiple abortions. A detailed investigation with some more evidence was required to arrive at a logical conclusion in this case.
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We are sure that this bit of news has definitely come as a surprise to all of you. Like we had already mentioned, the journey of pregnancy and motherhood will never cease to surprise us. Just when we begin to think that now we know everything about it, something as unusual as ‘fetus in fetu’ will spring a surprise on us. And who knows, there may be many more pleasant surprises too that are in store for us. Until then, let us count this as another new aspect that we learned about pregnancy, which makes it truly one of the most amazing wonders of nature!
