Stone Babies: Calcium is Weird!
Tonite I watched this crazy documentary about "Lithopedion" (litho = stone; pedion = child). For those of you among my friends who are squeamish, you may resent this picture, but actually, I just remembered that several of you attended not even one, but two different displays in Philly wherein you may have actually *seen* things like this in person, so nevermind!
That having been said...Meet Lithy. He is a Stone Baby. Apparently, when a fertilized egg implants itself *outside* of the uterus, in his case, his mother's abdominal wall, it dies and is sometimes too large (because it has started to develop) to be reabsorbed by the mother's body or expelled as in a normal miscarriage, so the mother's body defends itself against infection by calcifying the fetus! I think it's absolutely crazy and completely fascinating just *how* our bodies are equipt to protect ourselves! A "Stone Baby" can and even HAVE remainded inside women for 40 years!!! This is, of course, in poorer nations where medical knowledge and help is not readily available. I watched this woman from a poor village in Morocco undergo an operation on the show to have her calcified child removed after 40+ years of living with him "sleeping" inside her, as she and the people in her village believed! But it didn't *have* to be removed--I mean, they don't *hurt* the women carrying them or anything...in fact, according to Wikipedia (James is my fave for introducing me to this!), most go undetected until a woman comes in for *other* conditions and is examined and usually X-rayed.
Now, most are not as large as the one I have pictured above. His story is particularly fascinating. As I already mentioned, cases where the Stone Babies remain inside their mothers for decades usually occur in poorer, less-educated parts of the world. The mother of this particular Stone Baby thought that "everything was going fine with her pregnancy...but the baby just never came out." Wow...she told the Dr. who finally removed him that she had been pregnant....3 YEARS EARLIER!!!
Craziness. Read more here if you like!
That having been said...Meet Lithy. He is a Stone Baby. Apparently, when a fertilized egg implants itself *outside* of the uterus, in his case, his mother's abdominal wall, it dies and is sometimes too large (because it has started to develop) to be reabsorbed by the mother's body or expelled as in a normal miscarriage, so the mother's body defends itself against infection by calcifying the fetus! I think it's absolutely crazy and completely fascinating just *how* our bodies are equipt to protect ourselves! A "Stone Baby" can and even HAVE remainded inside women for 40 years!!! This is, of course, in poorer nations where medical knowledge and help is not readily available. I watched this woman from a poor village in Morocco undergo an operation on the show to have her calcified child removed after 40+ years of living with him "sleeping" inside her, as she and the people in her village believed! But it didn't *have* to be removed--I mean, they don't *hurt* the women carrying them or anything...in fact, according to Wikipedia (James is my fave for introducing me to this!), most go undetected until a woman comes in for *other* conditions and is examined and usually X-rayed.
Now, most are not as large as the one I have pictured above. His story is particularly fascinating. As I already mentioned, cases where the Stone Babies remain inside their mothers for decades usually occur in poorer, less-educated parts of the world. The mother of this particular Stone Baby thought that "everything was going fine with her pregnancy...but the baby just never came out." Wow...she told the Dr. who finally removed him that she had been pregnant....3 YEARS EARLIER!!!
Craziness. Read more here if you like!
posted by Reese | 3/30/2006 05:42:00 AM
3 Comments:
that picture actually did disturb me...
i love blog posts in which i learn something new, even if it is a bit disturbing. i do think it is incredible, albeit creepy. but you have a way to go to beat me on creepy posts, i have quite a few under my belt.
the worst thing i ever posted was a very obese person who was on a talk show with a caption "i want to sit on people for a living" under their name. i sort of felt bad about it but also found it hilarious...
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