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Zahra Aboutalib Was Pregnant For 46 Years

By Super Admin
Zahra Aboutalib Was Pregnant For 46 Years

Being pregnant for 9 months is a journey of mixed emotions, anxiety and fear. What if you had to be pregnant for 46 long years with a stone baby? Is it hard to believe... Believe it, Zahra Aboutalib made it a possible extraordinary story.

75-year-old Moroccan woman gave birth to a "stone baby", 46 years after it was conceived. The story begins in 1955, in a small village outside Casablanca. On a fine morning Zahra Aboutalib went into labour, but after 48 hours the baby still hadn't shifted. Fearing the consequences she is rushed to hospital. There young Zara witnesses the death of a pregnant woman on the operating table. The lady after getting convinced she would suffer the same fate fleas from the hospital in great panic. Its only after 46 years she realises that her fear of death actually gifted her nearly five decades of life.

After running from the hospital severe pains continued for Zahra for several days, but subsided with her baby still in her womb. After few days the baby no longer moved and the pain subsided eventually. She believed in the local myth of the 'sleeping baby', so she put her baby in the destiny's hand believing the baby would be born at a later date. Years later, Zahra adopted three children and later became a grandmother. It was just the tale of any other normal woman.

After 46 years, thats is at the age of 75, she began experiencing similar pains of labour. Her son insisted to visit a specialist in Rabat. When she went for a normal check to Dr Taibi Ouazzani. Quazzani immediately noticed a large growth in her abdomen. He feared hers swollen stomach indicated an ovarian tumour and had a detailed MRI done. He then saw something he couldn't identify and believe. It was the stone baby that was 46 years old.

The mass inside Zahra's stomach was no less than a calcified baby. In all these years, the baby had developed outside the womb and fused with Zahra's internal organs. This made it unable to be born, and had died tragically. The body developed a layer of hard calcified material around the dead baby, to shield itself from infection becoming a lithopedion or stone baby.

Thus, Zahra's foetus had developed in her fallopian tubes as an ectopic pregnancy. According to a research most ectopic pregnancies end in miscarriage or a termination, but Zahra's baby had resisted all odds and although dead, it had been accepted as just another organ. This signifies that she had been carrying a natural miniature mummy inside her for 46 years.

Now, the tale begins of risk and fate. The operation to remove the calcified foetus. The doctor states that over the four decades the baby had fused with Zahra's internal organs and abdominal wall. The doctors still wonder how she survived for these many years with a dead baby inside her stomach. It was just that the world had to witness yet another extraordinary story of survival. She was lucky once more and got through the operation. Just the way she was lucky enough to run from the hospital 46 years ago. If she hadn't made that attempt, without the required scanning technology, the doctors then would have opened her up for a Caesarian section just to cut through the umbilical cord, killing both Zahra and her baby. Now, that makes her an extraordinary woman with an extraordinary tale.

Story first published: Thursday, May 19, 2011, 17:54 [IST]
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