Chinese doctors remove foetus from twin sister’s skull

Doctors in China have removed an about four inches long foetus from the skull of its one-year-old twin sister in China.

The doctors told journalists the foetus had developed upper limbs, bones and even fingernails, meaning it is likely to continue growing for months inside its sibling womb.

The foetus was discovered after the parents took their daughter to the hospital for scans because she had an enlarged head and motor neuron problems.

A doctor at the Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Dr. Zongze Li, who treated the girl said “the intracranial foetus-in-foetus is proposed to arise from unseparated blastocysts.”

READ ALSO: Five miners dead, 45 missing in collapsed China mine

Foetus-in-foetus is a medical term for the rare phenomenon that sees twins fuse together in the womb, and one develops physically inside another.

CT scans revealed that the girl’s unborn sibling was pressed against her brain.

Doctors said the girl survived for a year after birth because it shared a blood supply with its sibling.

She also had hydrocephalus, a condition in which fluid accumulates deep within the brain, causing an enlarged head, extreme sleepiness, and seizures. 

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