Stone Baby Posted at 12/08/2009 02:46:00 PM 0 comments (+) I was browsing for out-of-this-world news yesterday when I stumbled upon this article at WeirdAsiaNews.com. It's a story about a 92-year old woman who gave birth to a "stone baby" she had been carrying for over half a century. The mother, Huang Yijun, is from southern China. She got pregnant in 1948. Yup, that long ago! Unfortunately, the baby died inside her but what's more unfortunate was that she didn't have the money to have the fetus removed from her body. So she went on with her life and carried the dead baby inside her until it calcified. This is how the 60-year old calcified fetus looks like:

Lithopedion is a very rare medical phenomenon, which occurs when a pregnancy fails and the fetus actually calcifies while still in the mother’s body.

Medically speaking, what often happens is the implanted fetus gets to an advanced stage before it dies. Too large to be absorbed by the body, the remains of the child or its surrounding amniotic sac slowly calcify, turning to stone as a way to protect the woman’s body from infection from the decomposing tissue.

If no complications occur, believe it or not, the mother can basically just go on with her life.

According to the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, only 290 cases of lithopedions have ever been documented by medical literature.

For more out-of-this-word news, just go to WeirdAsiaNews.com.

Labels: odd news buzz