JAIPUR: Eight years ago, a 24-year-old woman of Sujangarh in Churu district gave birth to a baby whose twin was growing inside the baby’s abdomen. Eight years later, doctors have removed the twin (fetus) with hair and bones of skull and legs. The eight-year-old boy had absorbed his twin while in his mothers womb, which later developed in his abdomen.

Doctors removed the unformed twin from his abdomen at DB General Hospital, attached to Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Medical College, Churu.

When the boy was born, there were half-formed body parts of his twin growing in his abdomen. Doctors who removed it from his abdomen claimed that it was constantly growing in size and weighed almost three kg. What initially appeared as a cyst in the abdomen of an eight-year-old boy, later turned out to be an under-developed fetus on further examination.

The boy is recovering post-surgery. Dr Sita Ram, Principal and Controller, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Medical College, Churu, said that it had hair, bones of skull and legs and was developing in the boy’s abdominal cavity. There must be some vessels that were feeding the fetus and supplying blood to keep it growing. Dr Ram said that it was not alive but it was a developmental abnormality in which a mass of tissue resembling a fetus forms inside the body and is known as fetus in fetu.

The boy was taken to Churu from his village Mundra where doctors performed tests including sonography and CT scan. The surgery continued for six hours and the boy was shifted to intensive care unit following the surgery.

Dr Ram said that ‘fetus in fetu’ happens when a woman is pregnant and post fertilization, twins are formed. However, due to certain reasons, one of them becomes a parasite on the other. It continuously grows inside the body of the other fetus. (TNN)