What is a lithopedion? Here's a brief description...
"A lithopedion an abdominal pregnancy can be regarded as a form of life threatening condition ectopic pregnancy where the embryo or fetus is growing and developing outside the womb in the abdomen, but not in the Fallopian tube, ovary, or broad ligament."
The fetus is attached but has no chance of survival. And it has no way out of the female's body. So when it finally dies it becomes calcified and stays in the abdomen until someone cuts it out.
A woman in South Africa carried one for 40 years...
"An 80-year-old woman presented in the outpatient department with severe abdominal pain. Ultrasound examination revealed a large echogenic mass (20 x 20 cm) in the right upper quadrant. An abdominal x-ray demonstrated the skeleton of a fully developed extrauterine fetus. It is presumed from the patient's history that this fetus was present for at least 40 years. Radiography revealed a fetus shrouded in a mantle of calcification. The fetus was hyper-flexed with other signs of "intrauterine" death. Fetal dentition charts dated the fetus at 34 weeks, the epiphyses being obscured by extensive calcification. In addition to subcutaneous calcification, there was extensive visceral and intracranial calcification."
This article has the known occurrences... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithopedion
This makes you wonder how many unknowns there were and are out there.
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15 comments:
Those poor women. And of course the babies who never had a chance.
Fascinating Mike. Wait till I tell the guys at the vacuum cleaner shop!
Sue - No chance from the beginning. So do you think the women could get an abortion in Texas?
Cloudia - Even the vacuum guys couldn't help this situation.
Maybe you should pass that along to Justice Alito.
Kirk - I think his brain might explode... which would be a good thing.
I have never heard of such a thing and wonder how on earth that egg was fertilised? Nature is very weird sometimes.
River - They said it's an ectopic pregnancy outside the fallopian tube.
There are known unknowns and there are unknown unknowns. We learned that from Mr Rumsfeld.
That's pretty creepy.
Bill - Who knew?!
Kathy - Just got you out of spam jail. ... But it's another abortion situation to consider.
Another of "God's mistakes".
Lady - God makes mistakes?! Say it ain't so!
I'd never heard of this before. As EC said, it's sad for both the mother and the baby who doesn't survive.
Now what I really wonder is how you stumbled on this!
Jenny - I think(?) I found this on Facebook on one of the science sites I follow. I find stuff and save it for later and when later comes I might not remember where it came from.
I think it's sadder for the woman who carries a dead fetus around for 40 years not knowing why she feels like she does. I would assume this would happen in third-world countries mostly now because our medical system is so great... right?
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