Was 68-year-old Ananthamma carrying a calcified foetus in her abdomen or was it merely an abdominal lump?

Doctors believe they removed a two-month-old foetus that was lodged in the abdomen of the woman some 35 years ago. Others say it could be a teratoma or abdominal lump from the growth of tissues. The woman, who underwent surgery to remove the foetus, is doing fine. World medical literature have recorded 300 such ‘stone babies’, as they are called, in the last 400 years.

Ananthamma, a farm worker from Monapur village in Mahbubnagar district, and a mother of two, underwent surgery on February 1, due to severe stomach pain. “She came to us a few days ago with stomach pain and a prolapsed uterus. A CT scan revealed the presence of lithopaedion or ‘stone baby’, 12 x 15 centimetres, in the layers of the intestine. After she was operated, the object was sent to the lab for tests. It was found to be a two or three-month-old foetus that must have been there for the last 35 years,” said Dr Mukund Rao, in-charge of the laboratory at SVF Medical College and Hospital, Mahbubnagar.

Calling it an extremely rare phenomenon, Dr Rao said, “It may so happen that the blood circulation to the foetus might have stopped and the growth stunted due to some complications during pregnancy. It lay infertile in the fallopian tube and from there might have gone to the abdomen. Over the years, it got calcified. The lab test detected limbs and femur in the calcified foetus.”

Dr K. Ramesh Reddy, paediatric surgeon at Niloufer Hospital, has his doubts. “For the object to be confirmed as a stone baby, presence of rudimentary spine or axial skeleton is necessary. It’s also possible that an abdominal lump had developed due to teratoma or abnormal growth of a group of tissues that increased in size with age,” he said.