Baby Grows Inside Woman's Abdomen Instead Of Uterus; Doctors Safely Deliver Girl Child

Doctors in India have safely delivered a baby girl who grew inside the abdominal cavity of her mother instead of the uterus. Both the mother and the child are doing well, doctors said.

The extremely rare case of abdominal pregnancy was reported in a 32-year-old woman in Delhi, the capital of India, The Times Of India reported.

According to the doctors, abdominal pregnancy, where the fertilized egg gets implanted inside the abdominal cavity instead of the main uterus cavity, is extremely rare and occurs in just one in 10,000 live births. Such a pregnancy rarely reaches an advanced stage as the mother won't usually survive the complications caused by the abnormality. The fetus also dies due to the lack of adequate blood supply or nutrition.

In this case, the condition was never detected despite conducting six ultrasound scans, Dr. Anjali Chaudhary of Aarogya Hospital, where the delivery was conducted, told News 18.

The woman began consulting Dr. Chaudhary during her third trimester. "Earlier ultrasounds that she had undergone in her hometown did not detect the issue. The baby was on the right side and was putting pressure on her right ureter. She was passing pus in the urine due to that condition and we had to put a stent in her ureter to manage the condition," Chaudhary said.

However, when the scans revealed the baby was in a breech position, the doctors decided to deliver the baby through a cesarean section. "When we did the incision, we found that the baby was in the abdominal cavity and we knew it was going to be a serious surgery," she told the publication.

An emergency medical team was immediately gathered and the baby was extracted by grasping the feet. However, after the baby was taken out, the placenta was found attached to the bowel and there was "torrential bleeding" while the doctors tried to remove it. The woman had to be given four units of fresh frozen plasma and three units of blood to make up for the blood loss.

Post-surgery, the mother was shifted to the ICU while the baby, who weighed 2.65kg remained in the ICU for 12 hours. "Both are absolutely fine and are at home now," the doctor told the outlet.

This is the woman's second child. Previously, she gave birth to a son via cesarean section.