A pensioner has died in Brazil after having surgery to remove an ultra-rare ‘stone baby’ she had been carrying inside her for around 56 years.
Daniela Almeida Vera, 81, passed away a day after the surgery at Ponta Pora Regional Hospital in the central-west state of Mato Grosso do Sul.
Medics had detected the calcified foetus, called a lithopedion, during a scan after Daniela complained of stomach pains.
The scan was taken after she was rushed to the Ponta Pora hospital with a generalised infection.
She had originally been at another hospital nearer her home after seeking help for a urinary infection.
Before the shock ‘stone baby’ discovery medical experts suspected she had cancer.
They have concluded Daniela had been carrying the dead foetus in her body since her last pregnancy more than five decades ago.
Daniela, who came from an indigenous tribe and lived in a settlement near Brazil’s border with Paraguay, leaves seven children and 40 grandchildren.
Her operation took place on March 14 and she died while still in intensive care the following day.
One of her six daughters, 21-year-old Rosely Almeida, 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.’
She also hinted her mum could have been carrying her ‘stone baby’ for longer than the 56 years doctors say because of pains she had experienced since her first pregnancy which she told relatives ‘felt like a baby was moving around inside her belly.’
Her only son Vanderlei Avalo Almeida 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.’
Further tests have now been ordered on the calcified foetus to find out more about it.
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.’
Last March it emerged a woman had died of severe malnutrition in the States after a lithopedion blocked her intestines for nine years.
The 50-year-old Congolese woman had reached the US as a refugee and visited a hospital complaining of stomach cramps, indigestion and a gurgling sensation after eating.
Doctors writing in the Journal of Medical Case Reports said the patient believed her health condition was related to a spell someone in Tanzania had cast on her. She died after turning down surgery.
Incredible pictures published in 2021 showed the moment doctors found a ‘stone baby ‘inside the womb of an elderly woman in Algeria.
Reports at the time said the 73-year-old had carried the foetus, weighing 4.5lbs and aged seven months, for 35 years. She was said to have had a good quality of life and was not harmed by the unborn child.
The rare phenomenon occurs most commonly when a foetus dies during an abdominal pregnancy, and is too large to be reabsorbed by the body and calcifies on the outside as part of a foreign body reaction, shielding the mother’s body from the dead tissue and preventing infection.
A 1996 paper in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine said only 290 cases of lithopedion have ever been documented by medical literature.
The earliest known lithopedion was found in an archaeological excavation at Bering Sinkhole, on the Edwards Plateau in Kerr County, Texas, and dated to 1100 BC.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
