The Ho Chi Minh City based Children Hospital No. 2 has successfully operated on a four-month-old baby girl carrying two foetuses.
The four month-old girl named Thi Quan of a M’nong ethnic minority farmer in Tho Son village, Bu Dang district, Binh Phuoc province, was born normal. When she was one month old, her belly started to become larger. She sucked less milk from her mother, vomited and became exhausted. She was taken to the children hospital on January 28, 1999 with serious malnutrition symptom and high temperature. She weighed only 5.6 kg. The X-ray film showed what appeared to be two tumours in her belly.
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The apparent tumours were removed from her body on February 9, by surgeon Tran Dong A and his team in a three-hour operation. One tumour was found on the left and one on the right of her spine. However, one of the supposed tumours was found to contain about one litre of amniotic fluid. On further examination it was a foetus with pelvic bone and backbone covered by a layer of white powder. One foetus has an intestinum caecum and an appendix outside it. The two foetuses weighed 2 kg. |
This is the first case of its kind found in Vietnam. It is believed that the mother became pregnant with three foetuses and one of them developed much faster than the other two and covered them up; a form of foetal parasitism, not a wholly unknown phenomenon.
By February 20, the girl was showing signs of recovering, wanting more milk from her mother. She now weighs 4.35 kg.