Doctors in a Chinese hospital were surprised at the weekend to discover that what was suspected to be a tumor, removed from the body of a two-week old infant was actually the embryo of the newborn’s undeveloped twin.
According to the hospital’s report, the 15-day-old boy underwent surgery on Nov. 6 for a suspected abdominal tumor and the doctors were surprised to discover that the growth was an underdeveloped embryo.
The embryo had developed small feet and few other human features. Doctors said that the boy is recovering and would be soon discharged from the hospital. This case is not the first instance for encountering such as many other similar cases had been seen at various times in different hospitals.
“It was almost impossible to detect during the prenatal checkup, as the embryo inside the baby was too small,” Dr. Yu Kai-man wrote in the Hong Kong Medical Journal. “Since it is impossible for the little girl to have conceived the pregnancy on her own, the fertilization of the twin fetuses, of course, belongs to her parents, which has gone to the wrong place.”