Woman carries dead foetus for 56 years, dies after removal surgery

Daniela Vera, a Brazilian grandmother, has died after going under the knife to remove a dead foetus she had carried in her abdomen for 56 years.

Vera, who hailed from Aral Moreira municipality in Brazil, checked into a local health centre on March 10, 2024, where she received treatment for a water infection.

The deceased was said to have had an ectopic pregnancy when she was much younger, and her complaints of stomach pains were ignored for years by doctors.

However, she was subsequently sent to another hospital for 3d scans. The scan returned a diagnosis of lithopedion, an abdominal ectopic pregnancy in which the foetus dies but cannot be reabsorbed by the mother's body.

Despite having seven children, the condition went unnoticed until the 81-year-old woman received the scans.

Meanwhile, she went into surgery, after which she was moved into intensive care, where she died on March 15 after suffering an infection.

Commenting on the development, the head of the Ponta Pora Hospital health department, Dr Patrick Dezir, explained that "When pregnancy occurs, it must be inside the uterus, but in some situations, pregnancy can occur outside.

"That baby was not clinical, the patient did not have acute pain and did not have major bleeding and this diagnosis goes unnoticed, and time will take care of that foreign body that was left inside the woman’s abdomen."

The deceased's daughter, Rosely Almedia, confirmed that her mother had complained of abdominal pain since her first pregnancy when she was a teenager.

"She said so it looked like a baby was moving inside her belly, and sometimes she felt sick, but we never suspected that it was that.

"She was old, and we are indigenous. She didn’t like going to the doctor, she was afraid of the equipment to take exams," Almedia added.

In a similar incident in 2013, an 82-year-old woman in Colombia underwent surgery to remove a 40-year-old four-pound foetus in her belly.

Lithopedion is an extremely rare condition, occurring in only 0.0054% of all pregnancies.