The mum was experiencing extreme pain. Photo: Shutterstock
An unborn baby kicked so hard it tore a hole in her mum's womb, nearly killing them both.
The woman, known only as Zhang, was just 35 weeks pregnant, but doctors at the Peking University Shenzhen Hospital had to act quickly after she arrived at the hospital with stomach pains.
The mum was experiencing extreme pain and had problems with her blood pressure, pulse and breathing, doctors wrote in a social media post.
Ultrasound showing the damage to the mother's uterus. Photo: Peking University Shenzhen Hospital
At first, specialists thought her womb had been ruptured so performed an ultrasound and what they found was surprising.
It showed that the baby had "kicked through" the uterus wall into the mum's abdominal cavity. Doctors said the tiny baby's thighs were stuck.
They delivered the baby via an emergency caesarean-section in order to stop the mother's blood loss and prevent the baby from contracting a life-threatening infection.
It took surgeons Zhang Lei, Zhang Yanping and Zhong Shilin just 10 minutes to safely deliver the little girl, saving her and her mother from death.
Doctors said the woman had a 7-centimetre "break" in her womb wall as a result of her unborn baby's kicks.
After examining the woman's medical history, it was discovered the mum previously had fibroids removed from her womb. That operation had resulted in a womb scar, leaving a weak spot on her uterus' wall.
It is not uncommon for women to experience a complete rupture when a tear occurs, typically at the site of an old caesarean-section scar, but is less common for it to occur prior to going into labour.
Doctors said both mum and baby were doing well, despite the traumatic events surrounding the little girl's birth.
auntie-matter on October 12nd, 2017 at 13:38 UTC »
Similar thing happened to a friend of mine. She gave birth to her second child, a daughter, and then got really ill immediately afterwards. Fevers, vomiting, digestive issues and so on. Serious stuff, she was in intensive care for a bit. The doctors couldn't work out what was wrong and kept referring her up to consultants and experts and so on.
Eventually they put her in some kind of scanner which showed blunt force trauma to an internal organ. Which nobody had been looking for as people don't often get internal bruises without at least some amount of external trauma too.
In the end they figured out that her kid had kicked her in the spleen during birth, and the bruising and damage was what was causing her to be ill. Once they knew what had happened it was fairly easy to deal with and she's completely fine now. Her case ended up in medical textbooks.
cmr2000 on October 12nd, 2017 at 13:36 UTC »
Exact same thing happened to my wife with second child. My wife has a high pain tolerance yet was in extreme pain. Talked her into going to the hospital and they tried to send us home and dismissed it as false labor or early contractions. I spoke up since I know my wife's tolerance and I'm glad I did. The next doctor decided that we should have the delivery right then. (Was going planned C-section due to previous fibroid surgery anyway). Not until they began the c section they did not realize what had happened. Suddenly doctors were coming and going from the delivery room as if we were a case study. Naturally we were preoccupied as they handed us a baby girl. Closing my wife up took a lot longer than expected. It wasn't until hours later that the doctor came in and explained what actually had happened and caused the pain. They were all quite shocked. I hate to think what may have been if we took the original advice and went home.
Happy to report that all ended ok and my daughter is now a happy 8 year old. Needless to say they recommended that be our last pregnancy.
Florac on October 12nd, 2017 at 11:14 UTC »
Will the baby be convicted of attempted murder as soon as it's born?