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We are in need of more postings. Please watch the news, pick up a newspaper or magazine, and share with your classmates stories that you think are IMPORTANT and have CURRENT RELEVANCE. Not every story on the local news is worth our time. But we don't have to focus just on the big, global stuff either. I want to see more action on this blog! We're all in this together, and it's a true team effort.

Monday, December 13, 2010

"Pregnant" one-year-old

A one-year-old Chinese infant had the appearance of being pregnant as her stomach was expanding rapidly huge compared to her small size. Of course, no one-year-old could get pregnant but it was the rumor was going around like wildfire in Luohe City, Zhenzhou. A childless couple found this regular infant at the time from a river who was neglected by her uncaring mother wanting her kid to drown. After the couple took in the child, her stomach started to grow rapidly huge. Neighbors pointed and laughed at the couple saying that they're keeping a "monster" amongst them. Her adopted father her too the hospital and found out that the "baby" was actually her twin sister, her parasitic twin.

A parasitic twin (also known as an asymmetrical or unequal conjoined twin) is the result of the processes that produce vanishing twins and conjoined twins, and may represent a continuum between the two. Parasitic twins occur when a twin embryo begins developing in utero, but the pair does not fully separate, and one embryo maintains dominant development at the expense of the other. Unlike conjoined twins, one ceases development during gestation and is vestigial to a mostly fully formed, otherwise healthy individual twin. The undeveloped twin is defined as parasitic, rather than conjoined, because it is incompletely formed or wholly dependent on the body functions of the complete fetus. The independent twin is called the autosite.
-Wikipedia
Surgery was necessary for the infant to survive but the bill was too high for this couple to handle; a total of 10,000 yuan or $1,500 in the US. The couple looked for financial aid and donations from the government and others. They finally found enough money and the surgery went on its way. It was a success. The parasitic twin was taken out of the little girl's body and she now lives on a normal life.

This happened in 2009.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1215282/Chinas-Kang-Mengru-survives-twin-foetus-removal-Zhenzhou.html

http://www.zimdiaspora.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1858:one-year-old-girl-pregnant&catid=38:travel-tips&Itemid=18

2 comments:

  1. Does this happen often? or is it rare ?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Not really. Usually parasitic twin will either vanish with no trace or have the little dead fetus remnants on the living baby when the mother gives birth. This happened once before in China in 2005.

    ReplyDelete

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