‘Pregnant’ OAP, 81, dies after surgery to remove ultra-rare ‘stone baby’ she’d been carrying for more than 50 years
Watch scans of the calcified foetus in shocking footage above
A WOMAN, 81, has died after doctors found an incredibly rare “stone baby” in her stomach that she had been carrying for over five decades.
Mum-of-seven Daniela Almeida Vera was rushed to surgery after the shocking discovery – one of less than 300 cases ever recorded.
Doctors uncovered the calcified foetus, called a lithopedion, which had been in her body for 56 years, with 3D scans.
The indigenous grandmother, who was reluctant to visit a traditional hospital, had been carrying it since her last pregnancy in 1968.
Medical staff suspected she had cancer before making the rare discovery, after she complained of stomach pains.
Daniela was rushed to surgery in Brazil to remove the foetus.
She underwent the incredibly uncommon operation on March 14 and died the following day in intensive care.
The incredibly rare “stone baby” has been sent off for medical testing.
Grandmother to 40, Daniela lived in an indigenous settlement close to Brazil’s border with Paraguay.
Her daughter Rosely told local press: “She was elderly and we are indigenous people.
“She didn’t like going to the doctor and she was afraid of the equipment used to carry out tests.”
Her son Vanderlei added: “She didn’t want to go to the doctors because she was worried she had a tumour.
“She would just take medicine so the pain went away.”
Daniela had first gone to a smaller hospital near her home to get help for a urinary tract infection.
She was then rushed to the Ponta Pora Regional Hospital in southern Brazil where further tests could be carried out.
Rosely said: “We’re are in a state of shock, there’s a lot of sadness.
“She was our mum and the only one who protected people and now she’s gone and we feel lost.”
What is a 'stone baby'?
A “stone baby” is a term used to describe a lithopedion, literally translating from Greek as “stone child”.
It happens when a woman experiences an ectopic pregnancy where the foetus dies but is too big to be reabsorbed into her body.
Ectopic pregnancies are when a foetus is growing outside of the Fallopian tubes or womb.
Stone babies would happen with an abdominal ectopic pregnancy, where the foetus grows in the abdomen.
The dead foetus remains in the abdomen, eventually forming a calcium shell and solidifying as part of a natural immune system response.
This shell protects the mother from infection but means it can go undetected for decades.
Stone babies are incredibly rare, but can occur from just 14 weeks into pregnancy right up to full term.
And while the number of recorded cases are low, it is not unusual for it to remain undiagnosed for decades.
A 1996 paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine said only 290 cases of lithopedion had ever been documented by medical literature.
Now almost 30 years later, it is still fewer than 300.
The earliest case is 68-year-old French woman Madame Colombe Chatri.
When she had an autopsy after her death in 1582, she was found to be carrying a fully-developed stone baby in her abdomen.
Chatri, whose abdomen was said to be “swollen, hard and painful throughout her life,” had been carrying her stone child for 28 years.
In 2013, an elderly Colombian woman was stunned when she went to the doctor for pelvic pain and was told the pain was caused by a 40-year-old ‘stone baby’.
And in 2009, a Chinese woman Huang Yijun, 92, had a stone baby removed which she’d been carrying for well over half a century.
Around a year before Daniela’s death a 50-year-old Congolese woman died as a result of a lithopedion she had been carrying for nine years.
The unnamed woman suffered several malnutrition after it blocked her intestines.
She visited a hospital also complaining of stomach pains, as well as indigestion and a gurgling sensation after eating.
Scans revealed a dead 28-week-old foetus in her lower abdomen.
The woman refused surgery, saying she did “not have it in my heart to do”.
She was also fearful of traditional medical facilities and avoided doctors.
And 14 months later she died of malnutrition.
According to BioMed Central, a UK scientific journal, fewer than 300 cases of lithopedions have ever been reported.
In December 2021, the same discovery was made with a 73-year-old woman in Algeria.
An X-ray scan revealed the dead foetus, 4.5lbs and seven months developed, had been there for 35 years.
