Pregnant Woman Dies After Carrying Dead Fetus In Womb For 2 Months, Husband Arrested

A pregnant woman in India died after she was forced to carry a dead fetus in her womb for two months.

The police said Sunday they have arrested her husband in connection to her death. The incident took place in the southern state of Kerala.

The woman, identified only by her first name Anita, got married to Jyothish three years ago, following which he moved into his wife’s house, media outlet Mathrubhumi reported. He reportedly met his expenses by selling his wife’s jewelry and vehicle.

The couple had a child together, but Jyothish did not take care of the mother and the baby. When Anita got pregnant for a second time, he asked her to get an abortion.

Due to lack of proper care and medication, the baby died in Anita’s womb. A doctor, who declared the unborn child dead, referred her to another hospital to remove the fetus. However, Jyothish did not take her to the hospital. The dead fetus remained in the woman’s womb for two months. Anita was reportedy six months pregnant when she died.

The woman’s health started to deteriorate due to an infection. On May 19, she was admitted to a hospital. Her husband left her at the hospital and went around borrowing money from several people in the name of his wife’s treatment.

Authorities said the woman died due to the infection on June 28. Following her death, a police complaint was filed and an investigation was launched into her death, Anweshanam reported [Google Translate showed].

A similar incident took place in Poland earlier this year, when a woman died after she had to carry a dead fetus inside her body for seven days. The victim died of sepsis after a month-long stay in a hospital, media reports said at the time. The woman, identified as 37-year-old Agnieszka T, was pregnant with twins. She went to a hospital after suffering from abdominal pain. Doctors found one of her fetuses had died. But, they waited to see if they could save the second one. "The extraction of the dead fetus was not allowed because Polish law strictly forbids it," the woman's family wrote on Facebook. "[Doctors] waited for the other twin's vital functions to stabilize on their own [for eight days]."