After carrying an unborn fetus inside her body for around nine years, a woman died of acute starvation.
The woman, who was born in the Congo, went to see specialists in New York after experiencing stomach cramps, indigestion, and a gurgling sound after eating.
Scans indicated that the 50-year-old had a ‘stone baby’ – a petrified fetus — that had squeezed her intestines due to a miscarriage nine years before.
The patient reportedly resisted treatment, claiming that her illness was the result of a “spell” placed on her in Africa.
The woman died 14 months after landing in America.
Doctors determined that she died as a result of severe malnutrition or famine. The’stone baby’ was claimed to be squeezing the gut. This resulted in blockages, which meant her body was no longer able to absorb necessary nutrients, resulting in famine.
The patient ‘declined intervention owing to dread of surgery and elected for symptom monitoring,’ according to Dr. Waseem Sous, an internal medicine expert at SUNY Upstate Medical University who reported the case.
Tragically, she died as a result of chronic starvation in the context of repeated intestinal obstruction due to lithopedion and continuing anxiety of seeking medical attention.’
At 28 weeks, the fetus, who would have been the woman’s seventh child, stopped developing within her. Instead of miscarrying, she developed a disorder called lithopedion.
The condition occurs when pregnancy forms in the abdomen instead of the uterus.
The condition has only been recorded 290 times, with the first dating back to France in 1582.
