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Amazing 60-Year Pregnancy
Filed under: In The News, Weird But True
Surely after nine long months of labor most pregnant women get sick of the constant cracks from friends and coworkers about how they're "so huge!" or "ready to pop." Huang Yijun put up with it for 60 years. That's how long the 92-year-old woman from southern China carried her unborn child inside her belly.
Sadly, this bizarre condition resulted from a devastating tragedy. In 1948, when Huang first became pregnant, doctors told her that her baby had died in the womb. But the procedure to remove the fetus was expensive -- approximately $150. That was too much money for Huang, leaving her with only one option: Move on. "It was a huge sum at the time -- more than the whole family earned in several years so I did nothing and ignored it," it was reported in The Sun.
The mystery was only uncovered when Huang recently visited her physician, complaining of stomach pain. Her doctor was shocked to discover not only that her fetus had not decayed, but that she'd managed to persevere through such exceptional medical circumstances.
"I couldn't believe my eyes when I discovered she had a baby in her belly," Dr Liu Anbin at Qingshen hospital said. "I've been a doctor for more than 40 years and it's the first time I have seen something like this." Doctors are now trying to determine if they can or need to remove the fetus.
Let's pause for a moment and consider Huang, who has been "with child" since 1948. Amazing. "It's very rare that Huang can be so healthy," said Xu Xianming, director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology department at the hospital.
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Sadly, this bizarre condition resulted from a devastating tragedy. In 1948, when Huang first became pregnant, doctors told her that her baby had died in the womb. But the procedure to remove the fetus was expensive -- approximately $150. That was too much money for Huang, leaving her with only one option: Move on. "It was a huge sum at the time -- more than the whole family earned in several years so I did nothing and ignored it," it was reported in The Sun.
The mystery was only uncovered when Huang recently visited her physician, complaining of stomach pain. Her doctor was shocked to discover not only that her fetus had not decayed, but that she'd managed to persevere through such exceptional medical circumstances.
"I couldn't believe my eyes when I discovered she had a baby in her belly," Dr Liu Anbin at Qingshen hospital said. "I've been a doctor for more than 40 years and it's the first time I have seen something like this." Doctors are now trying to determine if they can or need to remove the fetus.
Let's pause for a moment and consider Huang, who has been "with child" since 1948. Amazing. "It's very rare that Huang can be so healthy," said Xu Xianming, director of the Obstetrics and Gynecology department at the hospital.
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ReaderComments (Page 2 of 4)
1-18-2009 @ 4:24PM
MMorgan said...If you read the story mike the baby was dead when she went to the dr all those years ago, and she felt she couldn't afford the cost to have the baby removed. Abortion wasn't a big thing 60 yrs ago.
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 4:30PM
Gisele Hinderer said...I wonder if this condition is anything like the "Stone Babies" that I have read about....the babies actually mummify, dried up and turned stone like. I have seen pictures of these babies.
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 4:37PM
ANGI said...It does happen.....extremely rarely, the fetus will calsify and become stone-like after many many years. The rarity is that 99.99% of the time a woman would die from infection when the fetus is not removed somehow. If there is a major problem with the baby like death, somehow the body will know to "abort" which is where the term comes from, it's medically known as a spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) versus the elective "choice" to abort. When this doesn't happen, there are dire consequences for the mother usually major infection and sometimes death. But there have been a few cases of women carrying the fetus after it deteriorated and luckily didn't kill them.
Extremely sad, imagine carrying your baby with you forever, knowing it is dead. For any mother it's terrifying to think of losing a baby, it would be devastating to have to live with this I'd think.
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 4:50PM
Roo said...There's a medical condition called Lithopedia, literally 'Stone Baby'. As a previous poster stated, the baby becomes calcified, and then stays sterile in the body. Because of the calcium, it is not recognised as foreign by the mother's body and is therefore not rejected.
A woman carried her lithopedia for over 40 years before it was removed, it was on Discovery Health.
Reply
1-19-2009 @ 3:31AM
kathy said...While unusual, this is not that unheard of. Just a couple of weeks ago there was a Discovery documentary about stone babies. A Lithopedion (Greek:litho = stone; pedion = child), or stone baby, is a rare phenomenon which occurs most commonly when a fetus dies during an ectopic pregnancy, is too large to be reabsorbed by the body, and calcifies on the outside, shielding the mother's body from the dead tissue of the baby and preventing infection. Lithopedia may occur from 14 weeks' gestation to full term. It is not unusual for a stone baby to remain undiagnosed for decades, and it is often not until a patient is examined for other conditions or a proper examination is conducted that includes an X-ray that a stone baby is found. The oldest reported case is that of a 94 year old woman whose lithopedion have been present for upwards of 60 years.
Fewer than 300 cases have been noted in 400 years of medical literature.
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 5:12PM
michelle said...A fact back alley abortions were going on at the time...till 70's when abortions became legal...So ya women could get abortions but not legal, Frank Sinatra Put Hoboken Behind Him—and the Mother Who was Performing Abortions.
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 5:36PM
Richard said...Here is another occurence of a stone baby under similar circumstances,, the fact that these women survived so many years is amazing,,,,
http://www.mymultiplesclerosis.co.uk/misc/zahra-aboutalib.html
Reply
1-19-2009 @ 12:10PM
maria said...Come on think about it 60 years what she never had any children there are always some older person haveing babies this was one of those not 60 years being pregant
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 6:16PM
Heather said...Are you a moron Mike? "the procedure to remove the fetus was expensive -- approximately $150. That was too much money for Huang, leaving her with only one option: Move on"
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 6:26PM
Just Me said...Will you people PLEASE stop calling it an abortion!! I'll educate the ignorant. The baby IS dead, and she couldn't afford to have it removed 60 yrs ago. To have a deceased baby removed is called a D and E (D&E). It is when they remove the dead fetus to SAVE the MOM's life because the mother's body always rejects the baby's body once the baby dies...which usually results in a "miscarriage"; however, sometimes the mom's body doesn't push the baby out naturally after it dies in the womb...which will result in severe infection and DEATH for the mother. ALL doctors now insist on women who have had miscarried (but their bodies won't naturally get rid of the fetus) after a week or so to have a D&E. This is why I find it extremely HARD to believe this story is even true!! It's more likely that she was pregnant in the last few weeks and months and made up the story to "save face." Who knows.
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 6:46PM
jaxnjoz said...The woman is in China.....this was 60 years ago; Sad or unblieveable as this sounds, in China there are several things culturally that would make this possible. Maybe she was going to a village doctor, one that only had the medical training that was passed down from one "doctor" to "another".....kind of like a witch doctor; also, in China, a woman has very little value, as do her children, unless they are male. There are places in China that are still in the "olden" days and these peasants are not educated, so definitely 60 years ago it would be worse than now.
1-20-2009 @ 5:57PM
Kath said...Uhm, no mate. It's called a D & C. That means dilation and curettage. Dilation of the cervix and then curettage, which means using a sharp instrument to scrape the inside wall of the uterus to be certain there is no excess tissue left behind that can cause an infection.
1-20-2009 @ 9:12PM
Hmmm said...She is 92 Very doubtful she was pregnate in the last few weeks. Dont ya think!!!!!!!
1-20-2009 @ 8:08PM
joann said...The woman was 90 something years old, so I doubt she was covering up a pregnancy. people need to READ and comprehend the article before commenting.
1-21-2009 @ 5:36AM
Jennybean said...EXCUSE ME....JUST ME... STOP CALLING PEOPLE IGNORANT... SHE PROBABLY GOT PREGNANT WITH IN LAST FEW WEEKS AND WANTED TO SAVE FACE? HAHAHA WHO IS THE IGNORANT ONE NOW.... REREAD HOW OLD SHE IS STUPID
1-30-2009 @ 4:09AM
liz said...to justme...i agree with quite a few of your comments, but you blow it at the end by disbelieving the story is true, and then going on to suggest that the woman in question is covering up or saving face due to a recent pregnancy? Did you not read where this lady is 92 years old??!!! Good grief! Why do so many people not READ the actual stories in their entirety before firing off what end up as ridiculous responses?
Such a thing can and DOES happen. My own aunt, back in the 1940's carried a dead baby for longer than a year. The doctors at the time (she was with her husband in the Middle East) had no idea how to remove the fetus without killing her. By the time she finally got proper medical care, they most likely performed a hysterectomy, because my uncle told me later that she was told any possibility of another child was forever gone. She didn't develop an infection, but her inability to have a child broke her spirit.
1-18-2009 @ 6:34PM
Just Me said...Okay, I stand corrected. I have never heard of "lithopedia," but apparently these things can happen. Guess this time "I" was educated. LOL
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 6:35PM
kim said...ummm, it's a d&c not a d&e.
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 6:41PM
Angel said...It is medically proven that if the unborn baby dies, if not removed, the infection will kill mother. I had a relative, that was working so hard, selling staff to make money for her kids. She forgot about herself because of the family, so when she got pregnant again she wasn't aware of that. The baby died unborn. Since she didn't know, she didn't get a teatment on time, she died... It was horrible...still is, when I see her daughters
Reply
1-18-2009 @ 9:56PM
littldog said...get lost spam boy
Reply