Indian doctors withdraw rare parasitic twins from baby stomach

Indian doctors managed to remove the “parasitic twins” – two fetuses that grew inside the abdomen of a 20 -day baby.

Called Fetu fetus, the condition is extremely rare, with less than 200 cases reported in the world so far, a handful of which were in India.

The condition develops at the start of pregnancy when a poorly formed fetus is absorbed by the host twin. Although the fetus is not alive, it continues to develop by absorbing the nutrients of the host twin.

In this case, the woman was pregnant with triplets and two of the fetus began to grow inside the baby’s abdomen.

“Surgery was difficult, but the baby is healthy and is doing well,” said Dr. Anand Sinha, a pediatric surgeon who led the operation to the BBC.

The infant was returned from the hospital a month ago and there has been no complications so far, he added.

The doctor said the recovery period after surgery was crucial, as an infection or other complications could be fatal for the child.

In 2024, a three -day baby in the city of Kolkata died one day after having undergone surgery to remove two poorly trained fetus from his abdomen.

In the last case, the parents admitted their 20 -day baby to the Fortis Memorial Research Institute in Gurugram in July.

“She had an inflated abdomen, was irritable and unable to eat anything because the fetus crushed her stomach,” said Dr. Anand.

A scan showed two forms in the shape of tumors inside its abdomen, which were in fact the malformed fetus.

Dr. Anand said that surgery could not be done immediately because the baby was dehydrated, poorly nourished and had to be stabilized first. His condition improved after two days, then a team of approximately 15 doctors carried out the surgery.

“The operation took about two hours,” said Dr. Anand, adding that special equipment should be used due to the delicate and diminutive stature of the baby.

In addition, since the fetuses were attached to organs such as the liver, the kidneys and the intestines, they had to be extracted with great care so that no organ or blood vessel was damaged.

“Throughout the surgery, the baby’s temperature was monitored. We also had to make sure that there was not too much blood loss,” said Dr. Anand.

The fetus in the fetu is often diagnosed during pregnancy, but Dr. Anand says that sometimes parasitic twins are in adults if the condition is not detected during early childhood.

He says that if he is not deleted from the start, badly trained fetus continue to grow in size as the person ages. And although these fetus generally do not become cancer, they are likely to cause other problems to the individual, which will eventually lead to their detection.

In February, doctors withdrew two fetuses from the abdomen of a three -day baby in the state of Maharashtra.