each week we comb through science journals to explore a baffling medical issue.
in 2015, doctors in hong kong got more than they bargained for when they discovered the baby they had just delivered was pregnant with its own siblings.
the girl, who weighed almost nine pounds on delivery six years ago, arrived with a mostly mysterious condition called fetus in fetu. it occurs when a partially developed fetus (or two) gets assimilated inside a normally developed fetus. aside from throwing the gender reveal party into chaos, the condition — which occurs in roughly 1 out of every 500,000 births,
according to livescience
— is exceedingly rare and difficult to detect.
“weird things happen early, early in the pregnancy that we just don’t understand,” said draion burch, an obstetrician and gynecologist in pittsburgh. “this is one of those medical mysteries.”
abnormal growths during fetal development are typically referred to as teratomas — tumours that can contain hair, teeth, muscle and bone,
according to healthline
. in this case, however, doctors suspected the unusual mass inside the baby’s body were the remains of her incorporated siblings.
once the little girl was three-weeks old, she was referred to yu kai-man, an obstetrician and gynecologist at queen elizabeth hospital in hong kong, amid fears the mass may really be a tumour growing inside of her. surgery soon confirmed initial suspicions, however, as doctors found and successfully removed two fetuses imbedded between the girl’s liver and kidney.