Woman dies after rare ‘stone baby’ left inside her for 9 years
A WOMAN has died of severe malnutrition after a so-called ‘stone baby’ was found to be blocking her intestines.
The rare condition saw the 50-year-old Congolese woman carry around a calcified foetus, called a lithopedion, in her body for nine years.
The unnamed refuge, who had only just arrived to the US, visited a hospital complaining of stomach cramps, indigestion and a gurgling sensation after eating.
Scans soon revealed a dead 28-week old foetus lodged in her lower abdomen which was pressing on her bowel.
However, the woman refused surgery to have the mass removed saying she did did “not have it in my heart to do”.
Writing in the Journal of Medical Case Reports, doctors said the patient believed her health condition was related to a “spell” that someone in Tanzania had cast on her.
Nine years earlier, when she first realised she lost the child, medical professionals at a refugee camp accused the mum of “evil works”, “killing her baby” and “taking drugs”.
This encounter left her fearful of medics, and from this point on she refused all medical treatment.
The woman assured the US medical team that she would “let [them] know when [she was] ready – I am not scared of death”.
But just 14 months later, she died of malnutrition after the foetus blocked her intestines from absorbing vital nutrients.
Doctors said the case highlighted the “unfavourable impact” of “medical distrust” and the need for a better care model to “bridge the gap between the healthcare team and newly resettled refugees”.
They also encouraged medics to “gain more knowledge about this rare condition”.
UNDETECTED
According to a 1996 paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, only 290 cases of lithopedion have ever been documented by medical literature.
The earliest is that of a 68-year-old French woman Madame Colombe Chatri.
The she had an autopsy after her death in 1582, she was found to be carrying a fully-developed stone baby in her abdominal cavity.
Chatri, whose abdomen was said to be “swollen, hard and painful throughout her life,” had been carrying her stone child for 28 years.
Back in 2013, an elderly Colombian woman was stunned when she went to the doctor for pelvic pain and was told the pain was caused by a 40-year-old ‘stone baby’.
In 2009, a Chinese woman Huang Yijun, 92, had a stone baby removed which she’d been carrying for well over half a century.