Woman gives rare birth in TN

Chennai, Oct 29 (UNI) In a rare case, a woman gave birth to a fully grown child, formed in the Secondary Abdominal cavity, instead of the uterus or fallopian tube, as is the normal case.

Considering that the infant mortality rate was 99 per cent, as there was every possibility of the child dying due to presence of gas in the abdominal cavity, it is definitely a rarest of rare case in Indian medical history, because the chances of survival of the mother were also remote.

A team of doctors at the Kasturba Government hospital in the city, which performed this unique surgery, described it as a ''medical miracle'' as both the mother and the new born were alive, and healthy.

Perhaps it is for the first time in Asia that a baby entered the world from the Secondary Abdominal Pregnancy at the Government Kasturba Gandhi hospital.

When Meena of Perumalthangal, hailing from Cheyyar, got admitted at the hospital on October 12, litte did she would have realised that her delivering a baby would be a medical history.

Two days after her admission, she delivered a full grown baby, weighing 2.2 kg.

''Instead of growing in the uterus or the fallopian tube as is the normal case, the foetus had been growing in the abdominal cavity,'' Dr Vasantha M Subbaiah, Dr Sarala and Dr Khaleel Rehman, the team which performed the 'laparotomy' surgery on the woman, told mediapersons today about this rare and unique surgery.

They said Secondary Abdominal Pregnancy was a condition in which the chances of infant mortality was 99 per cent. ''There are gases in the abdominal cavity which may be lethal to a growing foetus,'' they said.

''In my 34 years of service as a gynaecologist, this is second such pregnancy, and the first case in which the infant has survived,'' Hospital Director Dr Subbaiah said, heaving a sigh of relief.

The baby was not visible when the usual tests were performed.

''We had to conduct an MRI Scan to locate it,'' the doctors said.

The baby had been getting the necessary nutrients not from the placenta but from a thin membrane called mesa colon. The amniotic sac (water) was intact and it had helped the baby to survive,'' said Dr Khaleel Rehman, who led the team in this complicated surgical procedure.

The chances of survival of the mothers are also very rare in such cases. ''There are chances of internal bleeding which are more often than not fatal to the mothers,'' the doctors said.

It is a medical miracle that the mother and the child have survived as there are only little over 100 recorded cases of Secondary Abdominal Pregnancies in the country.

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