A quick glance at this ultrasound image may suggest this tiny footballer kicked his little feet right out of his mum's uterus, but thankfully what you are seeing is a very rare phenomenon indeed.
A 33-year-old mum got the shock of her life when she went for a routine 22-week ultrasound, only to be told she was experiencing a 'rupture pregnancy'.
With only 26 cases ever recorded, a rupture pregnancy occurs when a tear in the uterine wall allows the legs of the foetus to pop through as it grows. Lead author of the report in which this image was first recealed, Dr. Pierre-Emmanuel Bouet of the Angers University Hospital in France, said he had never seen one before.
While it isn't necessary fatal, there are potential risks, including complete uterine rupture, placenta accreta, hysterectomy, and preterm birth.
Aware of the risks, the couple opted to proceed with the pregnancy with close monitoring.
According to the report, published in
The New England Journal of Medicine, magnetic resonance imaging revealed a 2.5-cm rupture of the left uterine wall (highlighted in the following image by the white arrows).
A herniated sac had grown outside the uterus and contained the baby's abdomen and legs.
Happily, the baby boy was healthy and delivered by C-section. After the delivery, the uterine rupture was repaired and the mum was discharged from the hospital five days later.
Now seven months old, neither baby nor mum experience any negative effects from the rupture pregnancy, but they will always have a very unique ultrasound image to add to the baby book.
Images: nejm.org 
