Unborn twin removed from brain of 1-year-old girl in China
The foetus of an unborn twin was removed from the brain of its one-year-old sister, when the parents took the girl to the hospital.
In an unusual case, a foetus of an unborn twin was removed from the brain of its one-year-old sister. The unborn baby was discovered when the parents took the one-year-old girl to the hospital because she had an enlarged head and problems with motor skills.
According to the doctors, the foetus, which was about four inches long, had developed upper limbs, bones, and even fingernails.
CT scan reports revealed the one-year-old girl’s unborn sibling was pressed against her brain.
The rare phenomenon is known as Fetus in fetu in which the twins fuse together in the womb and one develops physically inside the other. Such cases are thought to occur during the very early stages of twin pregnancy when the cluster of dividing cells made by a fertilized egg, called the blastocyst, fails to separate properly.
In medical history, around 200 cases of fetus in fetu have been recorded, with just 18 happenings inside the skull.
The case was reported in the American Academy of Neurology’s journal Neurology in December.
The unborn sibling continued to survive a year after birth because it shared a blood supply with its sibling, the doctor said.
It is unclear whether the surviving twin will sustain damage in the long run.
“The intracranial fetus-in-fetus is proposed to arise from unseparated blastocysts,” stated Dr. Zongze Li, a neurologist at Fudan University’s Huashan Hospital who treated the girl. The conjoined parts form into the forebrain of the host hatchling and wrap the other undeveloped organism during brain plate collapsing.”
Ms Kalinga