44-Year-Old Fetus Found in 84-Year-Old Brazil Woman: 'Stone Baby' Died Decades Ago
A 44-year-old fetus was found in an 84-year-old Brazilian woman last Friday, according to reports. The calcified baby had apparently died outside the womb decades ago, become rock hard, and began causing the woman pain, which forced her to go the doctor.
The 44-year-old fetus' story began about 44 years ago, when the Brazilian woman got pregnant at age 40, G1 reported. The woman became worried because she was experiencing intense pains, so she decided to visit a witch doctor for help. The healer, whom she visited because there were no doctors in the village at the time, gave her a holistic potion to drink, and after that, she went home.
"Her stomach didn't grow anymore, the baby stopped moving, and she thought it had been aborted," a gynecologist at the hospital she visited revealed.
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More than 40 years later, her pain caused her to visit doctors, who found a "stone baby" in her abdomen; the fetus died outside of the womb but the body was unable to get it out, so calcium covered the dead infant in a rare medical instance called lithopedion.
X-rays showed "the face, the bones of the arms, of the legs, the ribs, and the spine" of the unborn child, which died between 20 and 28 weeks, the gynecologist told G1.
Lithopedion occurs when the fetus is too big to be absorbed by the mother's body— the hardened calcium protects the mother from harm, and in similar cases the fetus has gone undetected for years.
"It's supernatural, but she has not had any complications," the gynecologist explained. "We are going to perform some new tests, scans to see more details and then we will speak with her relatives to see if they allow us to operate."
The Brazilian woman "doesn't want the baby to be removed," according to reports.
