Hey, here’s some terrifying news: sometimes fetuses, who died due to complications, never leave the body and become a calcified mess of horror. This phenomenon is apparently not as rare as you’d think (and hope) and one unidentified Chilean woman is making international headlines now that doctors have discovered a 50-year-old fetus in her 90-year-old body.
The woman, who went to the hospital after a fall, learned she’d been carrying a well-formed four-pound calcified fetus in her stomach when doctors took an x-ray. What’s even more terrifying is that the fetus had not only been living in her body for more than 50 years, but that, according to the BBC, it had taken over most of her abdominal cavity.
The phenomenon of a calcified fetus, reports the BBC, is called a lithopedion and is often not noticed by women carrying the organism inside them. Sometimes the fetus is removed, but the 90-year-old in question was sent home without any surgery. Doctors believed that while the fetus is problematic, performing surgery on a frail and elderly woman had far more risks than benefits.
(Via The BBC)