40-Year-Old Fetus Found Inside Elderly Woman

A Colombian woman who went to a hospital in Bogota, complaining of stomach pains, got the surprise of her life when doctors saw an X-ray and discovered a 40-year-old calcified fetus — or lithopaedian — inside her 82-year-old body.

Lithopaedian, also known as stone baby, is a very rare syndrome that happens when the fetus grows outside the uterus and inside the abdomen. Indeed, the phenomenon occurs only once in every 11,000 pregnancies. If the fetus becomes so large that it cannot be absorbed back into the body, it mummifies, with a layer of calcium protecting the mother’s body from the dead tissue of the baby. Usually the woman has no idea a calcified fetus is inside her. Throughout the many years of existence of such a ‘stone baby’ in a woman’s abdomen, occasional pain is experience but such discomfort is often thought of not as pregnancy but as mere reflux or heartburn.

The Colombian woman has undergone surgery to remove the calcified fetus.  (Huffington Post)