MANILA, Philippines – A newborn baby girl in Hong Kong was found to be pregnant with two fetuses, a report from the South China Morning Post said.
The report said the baby girl was born with a rare condition called “fetus-in-fetu,” which occurs only about 1 in every 500,000 births.
The report quoted a recent medical study published in the Hong Kong Medical Journal saying the girl was just three weeks old when doctors performed surgery to remove the fetuses.
It said, the baby, who was born in Queen Elizabeth Hospital in November 2010, had to undergo surgery three weeks after her birth to remove the fetuses from her abdomen.
The report added the girl had a good recovery and was discharged from the hospital eight days after the operation.
“Since it is impossible for the little girl to have conceived the pregnancy on her own, the fertilization of the twin fetuses, of course, belongs to her parents, which has gone to the wrong place,” Dr. Yu Kai-man, a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology, was quoted as saying in the report.
“It was almost impossible to detect during the prenatal check-up, as the embryo inside the baby was too small,” Yu added.
The report quoted the World Health Organization (WHO) saying the reason behind the abnormality was still unknown.
The WHO, however, said it was possible that the girl’s mother may have had multiple abortions.