Lithopedion

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A lithopedion - also spelled lithopaedion or lithopÃƒÆ'Ã‚|dion - (Ancient Greek: ????? = stone Ancient Greece: ??????? = small child, baby), or baby stone , is a rare phenomenon occurs most often when the fetus dies during abdominal pregnancy, is too large to be reabsorbed by the body, and calculates outside as part of a foreign body reaction, protecting the mother's body from dead fetal tissue and preventing infection..

Litopy can occur from 14 weeks of gestation to full term. It is not unusual for a stone baby to remain undiagnosed for decades and to be found well after natural menopause; diagnosis often occurs when the patient is examined for other conditions requiring X-ray studies. A review of 128 cases by T.S.P. Tien found that the average age of women with lithopedia was fifty-five years at the time of diagnosis, with the oldest one hundred years old. Lithopedia was brought for an average of twenty-two years, and in some cases, pregnant women for the second time and gave birth to children without incident. Nine of the cases reviewed have been carrying lithopedia for more than fifty years prior to diagnosis.

According to a report, there are only 300 cases of known baby babies in the world, recorded in over 400 years of medical literature. While the chances of a stomach pregnancy are one in 11,000 pregnancies, only between 1.5 and 1.8% of these stomach pregnancies can develop into lithopedia.

Video Lithopedion

History

The earliest known lithopore is found in archaeological excavations in Bering Sinkhole, on the Edwards Plateau in Kerr County, Texas, and dated 1100 BC. Another early example was found on the Gallo-Roman archaeological site at Costebelle, southern France, dating from the 4th century.

This condition was first described in a treatise by a Spanish Muslim physician Ab? al-Q? sim (Abulcasis) in the 10th century. By the mid-18th century, cases had been documented in humans, sheep and rabbits in France and Germany. In a speech before the French AcadÃƒ Â© Royal Decision Sciences in 1748, surgeon Sauveur FranÃƒÆ'Ã‚Â§ois Morand used lithopedia both as evidence of the general nature of fetal development in vivipar and ovipar animals, and as an argument in favor of caesarean section.

In 1880, German physician Friedrich KÃƒÆ'Ã‚Â¼chenmeister reviewed 47 cases of lithopedia from the medical literature and distinguished three subgroups: Lithokelyphos ("Sheath Stone"), where calcification occurs in the placental membrane rather than the fetus; Lithotecnon ("Stone Child") or "true" lithopedione, in which the fetus itself undergoes calcification after entering the abdominal cavity, after rupture of the placental and ovarian membranes; and Lithokelyphopedion ("Stone Cover [and] Child"), in which the fetus and sac are calcified. Lithopedia can originate both as a tubal and ovarian pregnancy, although tubal pregnancy cases are more common.