Somehow I convinced her to watch a series on unusual pregnancies last night. This particular show featured two women on opposite sides of the globe (England and Morocco, I believe) who presented with similar symptoms of intense abdominal pain and extra uterine bleeding. Ectopic pregnancies were the common link; however, the two women's circumstances could not have been more different. The young British woman was pregnant with triplets and was suffering from a heterotopic pregnancy, with one of the babies outside of the uterine cavity (in this case it was actually growing into the peritoneum) and the others growing normally within the uterus. The Moroccan woman was well into her 70s and had failed to deliver a child almost 46 years prior due to her fear of dying during childbirth inside of the nearby hospital. She instead chose to return home while experiencing what she thought were severe labor pains...her pregnancy was also ectopic and the pain she was feeling was instead the result of a ruptured fallopian tube. In any case, the undelivered fetus remained in this woman for over FORTY YEARS and in an attempt to protect the body from the toxic effects of the fetus's tissues and infection, the body "walled off" the fetus and thick calcium deposits were formed. Thus, we have our weird medical phenomena of the day: Lithopedia. The condition is extremely rare (only about 300 cases have been reported in 400 years of medical literature) and as a whole it is just hard to believe. These "stone babies" can go undiagnosed for years and may be discovered only on routine X-ray or examination for other medical conditions. I personally would be quite concerned if I was pregnant and SURPRISE! the baby was never delivered...or if I suddenly had a painful 7-pound mass growing in my abdomen. Either or. But somehow women can survive for years with this condition...it kind of reminds you how amazing the human body is, right?
Hopefully no one is too disturbed by this picture but I just had to add it...
There you have it. Not only have you learned a new word but you have a whole host of Google images to search for. You can thank me later.
1 comment:
Wow that is actually so interesting. I love those freaking shows. I watched one that was classic once of people who didn't know they were pregnant until they started giving birth. One rather ghetto woman was pregnant with twins, went to the hospital in labor not knowing she was pregnant, they left this woman in her room (idiots) and she actually went to the bathroom thinking she had to take a poop and she gave birth to the first twin INTO THE TOILET! and then she got up and went back to the bed - leaving the baby there. It was so crazy. Anyway I don't have a picture of that but stone baby is probably somewhat close to the looks of him.
Glad to see that not being in school hasn't made you lose your edge.
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