[Freaky] 46 Year Pregnancy

http://www.five.tv/programmes/extraordinarypeople/46pregnancy/

This astonishing documentary examines two extraordinary and frightening pregnancies. A 75-year-old Moroccan woman gives birth to a “stone baby”, 46 years after it was conceived, and a British woman describes her ectopic pregnancy, in which her baby developed in the stomach lining and was delivered two months early – at odds of around 60 million to one.

In 1955, in a small village outside Casablanca, Zahra Aboutalib went into labour. Forty-eight hours later, the baby still hadn’t shifted and Zahra was rushed to hospital. There, Zahra looked on as a young woman died in agony on the operating table. There was only one thing for it; she turned and fled in panic, convinced she would suffer the same fate. Days of excruciating pain followed, and then the pains faded out. In Moroccan culture, it is believed that babies can live inside a woman’s womb to protect her honour and Zahra took on this “sleeping baby” myth. Zahra cast the pregnancy from her mind and many decades passed, during which time she adopted three children and became a grandmother.

Then one day when Zahra was 75 the agonising pains returned with a vengeance. Dr Taibi Quazzani assumed Zahra’s swollen stomach indicated an ovarian tumour and sent her for scans. Nothing could have prepared Zahra for the results: the mass inside her stomach was no less than a calcified baby. All those years ago, the baby had developed outside the womb and fused with Zahra’s internal organs, and unable to be born, had died. To shield itself from infection from this “foreign body”, the body developed a layer of hard calcified material around the dead baby. Zahra’s foetus had developed in her fallopian tubes as an ectopic pregnancy and she had been carrying a miniature mummy inside her for 46 years. Most ectopic pregnancies end in miscarriage or a termination, as they are the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths, but Zahra’s baby had defied all odds and although dead, it had been accepted as just another organ.

The operation to remove the calcified foetus was a risky one. Over the decades it had fused with Zahra’s abdominal wall and internal organs. How Zahra had managed to survive these years is anybody’s guess, but she was lucky once more and got through the operation. She had even been lucky to run from the hospital. Without the required scanning technology, the doctors responsible for Zahra’s baby would have opened her up for a Caesarian section unaware of the baby’s positioning, and would probably have cut through the umbilical cord, killing both Zahra and her baby.

There are around 300 cases like this reported, but Zahra’s calcified baby spent the longest time in the womb.



TLC is showing a documentary on this tonight at 7pm if you are interested in seeing it.

 

I'm sure there will be some on the documentary tonight.