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Pregnancy

26th Nov 2019

Baby born ‘pregnant’ with own twin had foetus removed via C-section

Jade Hayden

The child is now living a “normal” life.

A baby born “pregnant” with her own twin had the foetus removed via C-section.

The birth, which was first reported in March, referred to an extremely rare phenomenon called ‘fetus-in-fetu,’ where a partially formed foetus continues to grow inside of a healthy foetus’s body.

Now, it has been reported that the newborn baby required an emergency C-section to remove its twin when it was just one day old.

According to Insider when the child’s mother, Mónica Vega from Barranquilla, Colombia, presented for an ultrasound at her local hospital, doctors discovered two umbilical cords inside of her uterus.

This wasn’t, however, because she was expecting two healthy twins, but because her daughter had absorbed her own twin in the womb.

Vega’s baby was delivered via emergency C-section, with the baby receiving her own emergency Caesarean just 24 hours later.

Doctors had been concerned that if they did not remove the foetus from the baby, named Itzmara, that it would have continued to grow and damaged the infant’s internal organs.

Fetus-in-fetu was first documented in a British medical journal in 1808. It has since been recorded in births in India, Singapore, and Indonesia.

It is thought that the condition affects approximately one in half a million live births across the globe.

When removed from Itzmara’s body, the twin had a partially formed head and limbs and measured approximately two inches in length.

Doctors have since said that Itzmara is “a normal baby now.”

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