In an amazing story brought to light in a documentary, a 75-year-old woman from Morroco gave birth to a 'stone baby' that she had conceived 46 years earlier and had carried inside her for nearly half a century.
Zahra's shocking story unraveled in 2001 when she began experiencing acute abdominal pains at the age of 75 in Rabat, the capital of Morocco.
Zahra Aboutalib, a 26-year-old woman living in a village outside Casablanca, Morocco, got pregnant for the first time. After suffering labor pain for 48 hours, she was rushed to a local hospital where doctors prepared her for a caesarean section. There, she saw another woman die in terrible pain during childbirth. This caused her to flee the hospital thinking that if she had stayed she would meet the same fate.
The Sleeping Child is a Moroccan and Maghrebian folktale which says that black and white magic can make a fetus dormant, and it may wake up and be born after the normal gestation period. Even Article 154 of the current Mudawana (Family code in the Moroccan law) states that a child born 1 year after the separation is considered to be fathered by the ex-husband. Zahra believed strongly in this Moroccan myth. Furthermore, once the labor pains stopped, she started living her life as usual and even became a grandmother. However, she never gave birth to a child.
When her pain suddenly returned at age 75, her son took her to Professor Taibi Ouazzani. He suspected an ovarian tumor because of her protruding belly. As a result, he arranged an ultrasound scan. The scan showed an unidentifiable large mass. He suspected that it was some kind of calcified structure, and so he referred her to a specialist radiographer. Finally, an MRI scan confirmed that it was indeed her calcified unborn baby.
It was concluded that Zahra had suffered from an ectopic pregnancy, where the egg had implanted itself in the fallopian tube and eventually burst the tube during development, coming to lie in the abdominal cavity. The fetus had attached itself through the placenta to the vital organs around Zahra’s abdomen. It was a hard decision whether operating would be safe or not.
When the surgeons operated, it was discovered that the fetus was entirely calcified and was a hard, solid lump. Basically, a stone baby, which was fused to Zahra’s abdominal wall and vital organs.
In 1955, she would have required a complicated procedure to remove the baby. Her fleeing the hospital 46 years ago might have saved her life, as there was only a small chance that the technology available in those days was advanced enough to separate the fetus from her vital organs.
Even in 2001, the operation was a difficult one. The danger was that she would bleed to death as they removed the calcified stone baby. The baby had fused to Zahra's bladder, stomach, abdominal wall, and veins.
Any minor slip of the scalpel could have punctured these organs and cost Zahra her life.
At the time of the documentary, only 300 cases of such stone babies, also known as lithopedions, had been reported in medical history.
After 46 years, Zahra was finally able to give birth to her baby.
In cases of ectopic pregnancy, if the dead fetus is not able to be reabsorbed by mother’s body due to its large size, the mother’s body treats it as a foreign object and may trigger immune actions against it.
A calciferous shell then forms around the dead fetus to protect the mother from any infection and causes the tissues of dead fetus to become dehydrated (mummified) making it a lithopedion or stone baby. It can occur from 14 weeks gestation to full term.
Article source: http://www.unbelievable-facts.com/2017/02/stone-baby.html
