A one-year-old who had an enlarged head had the foetus of her identical twin removed from her skull.
Doctors at Huashan Hospital at Fudan University in China said the unborn twin had continued growing for months while inside its sibling in the womb.
The foetus had gone undetected for a year after the girl’s birth and was only found when the surviving twin’s parents took their daughter to hospital because of her large cranium and motor skills.
It is a medical anomaly, only ever recorded a handful of times.
The foetus, which had developed upper limbs, bones and even fingernails, was around four inches long and was only discovered when the parents took their daughter for hospital scans because she had an enlarged head and problems with motor skills.
Foetus-in-foetu is the term used to describe this rare occurrence when twins fuse together in the womb, of which there have been only 200 documented cases with 18 happening inside the skull.
It is thought to be caused by incomplete separation when a single egg splits or as late cell division.
Despite surviving a year after birth thanks to its shared blood supply, it’s unclear if the surviving twin will suffer long-term damage.
There are further similar cases in medical literature; in 2017 Thailand discovered three siblings inside the skull of an unborn girl connected by a single artery and vein; likewise in 2015, China found an unborn foetus inside its male twin’s scrotal sac.
All were successfully removed via surgery with full recovery for their twins.
Source: PuncNewspapers
