In a rare incident, a 50-year-old African woman died in New York, due to the presence of a fossilized fetus in her stomach 9 years ago.
The woman resorted to doctors because she felt stomach cramps, indigestion, and a gurgling sound after eating.
The examinations revealed the presence of a fossilized fetus in her stomach, which pressed her intestines for a long time and prevented her from absorbing food well, which led to her death as a result of severe nutritional deficiency, according to Sky News.
The rare phenomenon, which has only been recorded about 300 times, occurs when a fetus growing outside the uterus dies during pregnancy and is not expelled from the body.
The woman died 14 months after her arrival in the United States, and doctors said she died as a result of severe malnutrition.
Wassim Sous, an internal medicine expert at the State University of New York Medical School, said the patient refused medical intervention for fear of surgery. Unfortunately, she died of severe malnutrition after repeated bowel obstruction.
The woman moved to live from Congo to Burundi and then Tanzania due to conflicts. She settled in Tanzania and gave birth to 8 children who were born naturally.
During her ninth pregnancy, she visited a doctor’s office in a refugee camp after noticing that her baby was no longer moving.
The medics there told her that the baby was not having a heartbeat and recommended that she try to abort him naturally at home, and if that didn’t work she should see them in two weeks, but she didn’t.
