Baby Born Pregnant - A 9-pound baby girl born in Hong Kong had to undergo surgery to remove two fetuses that doctors found growing inside her body.
Experts say the baby born pregnant was affected by a condition known as 'fetus in fetu,' where the fetus of a baby somehow ends up inside another - usually normal - fetus in the womb. It is exactly unclear what causes this condition, while some medics say one fetus may have simply 'absorbed' the other, several experts have linked the condition with a form of cancer known as teratoma.
The news of the baby born pregnant was first reported in the Hong Kong Medical Journal. Reports indicate that doctors at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hong Kong, where the child was born, had initially thought that the growth on her left side was caused by two tumors. However, further inquiry revealed that the growth between the baby's liver and left kidney were in fact her undeveloped siblings.
Dr. Yu Kai-man, an obstetrician and gynecologist, who examined the mother of the baby born pregnant, has explained that the fetuses in the baby's body weren't immediately apparent.
"It was almost impossible to detect during the prenatal check-up, as the embryo inside the baby was so small,' he said.
Reports indicate that the fetuses appeared to have been growing normally before their development was abruptly stopped when they were absorbed into their sister at just 10 weeks old. Both fetuses reportedly had limbs, vertebral columns, intestines, bones with bone marrow and even umbilical cords, which appeared to have been connected to a placenta-like mass. They weight 14.2 grams and 9.3 grams respectively.
Medical experts say the "fetus in fetu" condition is so rare that some of the most trusted veterans in the practice may have only seen it once or twice in their career. Reports indicate that it affects just one in 500,000 births.
The baby born pregnant has successfully undergone surgery about three weeks after she was born to have the fetuses in her body removed.
