Friday, December 23, 2016

What is this?



A fetus' legs protruding from a womb. Is it genuine? Well, it was printed in New England Journal of Medicine on Thursday. You can't even use the word 'rare' in this case as only 26 other recorded cases existed in the history of obstetric medicine.

Here's more from the Washington Post article:

“The fetal legs did not cause the rupture,” Bouet (the doctor) said. Instead, the woman’s history of five C-sections likely led to a tear, in the obstetrician’s view. Because of scarring from the previous births, parts of the uterus remained atypically rigid instead of enlarging during the woman’s latest pregnancy. The uterine wall ruptured when it was unable to expand, causing an inch-long tear (pictured above, marked by the arrows).
The mother was unaware of the rupture and displayed no symptoms. Women with uterine ruptures usually feel pain, Bouet told The Post, brought about by internal bleeding. But the hernia “compressed the walls of the uterine rupture,” he said, “and acted as a hemostatic effect.” That is, the position of the amniocele and baby legs plugged the rupture, preventing blood loss.

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