A 59-year-old woman in the Dominican Republic recently found out that she has been carrying a dead fetus for at least 30 years.
She was suffering sharp stomach pains for decades, and didn’t know what was causing them, until she recently sought medical help.
The mummified remains of the fetus, which weighed 3 pounds and 12 ounces, were found during an X-ray exam of the woman.
Miladys Roman, the chief gynecologist at Luis Eduardo Aybar Hospital in Santo Domingo, said the woman told doctors she had long experience pains but never received adequate medical attention.
Petrified fetuses are rare, but they do happen. In 1996, a doctor found a dead fetus that had been inside a Brazilian woman for 15 years.
The woman told a São Paulo paper,
“I was shocked when told I had been pregnant so long. During all this time, my belly never swelled.”
The woman has safely removed the fetus.
