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4-year-old boy complains of stomach pains, doctors find remains of dead twin inside him

Oct 7, 2015

By Dave Andrusko

intlbusinesstimesIt is almost too incredible to believe–and it is exceedingly rare–but the remains of a dead baby were found in a 4-year-old Indian boy who had complained of stomach pains.

The International Business Times (IBT) reported yesterday

Dr. Shirshendu Giri, heading the team of doctors, who performed the surgery said: “The dead embryo which had hands, legs, nails and a partially formed head was removed from the child’s body after a long operation. The boy is alright now still under close observation.”

Called ‘fetus in fetu,’ (baby within a baby), the condition is so rare it affects only one in five million live births.

Reporting for the IBT, Agamoni Ghosh explained that

During the very early stages of a pregnancy, if a woman happens to carry twins whose bodies are joined together, there is a chance of one of the foetuses can enter the other through the umbilical cord. The enveloped twin becomes a parasite whose survival depends on the survival of its host. Although after birth it becomes an abdominal mass, it may pose clear threats to the life of the host twin.

Typically, the dead baby’s remains are found in the abdomen of the surviving twin, although occasionally it is found in the skull or back. “There are only 200 reports of it ever happening,” the Daily Mail reported.

Last week, the boy, from the village of Kharikabandh, in the Midnapore district of West Bengal, complained of stomach pains. Doctors initially thought it might be a tumor but “were shocked to discover a developed dead foetus in his abdomen in the ultra-sonography and CT scan,” the IBT reported.

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In its story, the Daily Mail referred back to two earlier examples it had reported on.

In 2009, MailOnline also reported on the case of a one-year-old girl who survived surgery to remove her unborn twin’s foetus from her swollen stomach. …

And in 2012, MailOnline reported on the case of an 11-year-old schoolgirl was admitted to a hospital in China with a third arm sprouting out of her back.

She was diagnosed with foetus in fetu, and the large mass was revealed to be part of an identical twin that had failed to develop and had been enveloped into the body of its sister.

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