The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Stomach this one: `baby' within baby

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 07, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Stomach this one: `baby' within baby

Puja S. Navin

HYDERABAD: Sometimes too much work shows up on God's output too. This may probably explain the unfinished piece of creation that doctors at Niloufer Hospital here found to their dismay when they opened up the tiny tummy of a 45-day-old baby girl from Medak on Tuesday.

"This is the brain, here you can see the limb buds, this is the skin with fine hair and these are fingers buds," pointed out N.C.K. Reddy who along with his medical team surgically removed the one-kg lump from the toddler's tummy in a two-hour long delicate surgery.

Holding the veined muscular mass in his hands, Dr. Reddy, Professor of Paediatric Surgery and Head of the institute, described the phenomenon, which is called Foetus-in-fetu (baby inside a baby), a rarity.

One of those freak cases

"In my 25 years of practice, I have come across only two such cases," he said. Explaining this condition, which happens to one in five lakh babies, he said: "During the foetus development, two begin to grow instead of one. This could lead to birth of twins. But for reasons unexplained, one foetus is drawn into the tummy of the other, which starts developing abnormally and behaves like a parasite."

This is exactly what happened in the case of baby Pratyusha. Her parents brought her from Medak on August 25 with complaints of vomiting, breathlessness and an unexplained bulge in her stomach. The lump was growing in size everyday.

"We found a tumour-like situation, causing breathing difficulties, but I anticipated what we are heading for," he said.

Occupying the entire space of her tummy, linked to her little kidneys, iota and intestines, this underdeveloped foetus interfered with the growth of Pratyusha. "So it had to be removed in a very carefully performed operation," said Dr. Reddy.

Parents heave sigh of relief

With the one-kg lump out of the 2.5-kg baby's abdomen, her parents heaved a sigh of relief. The team that assisted Dr. Reddy comprised Sarveshwar Reddy, Bhubaneswar Rao and Gyanender Reddy and anaesthetists — Prabhavathy, M.S.R.C Murthy and Prabhu.

Pratyusha is now in the intensive care unit. The removed specimen will be sent for biopsy. Dr. Reddy, however, has some `fears.'

"I fear someone may remove the brain of the specimen," he chuckles.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Andhra Pradesh