A one-year-old child’s brain included a ‘unborn twin,’ which was found in Shanghai, China. A syndrome known as ‘fetus-in-fetu,’ in which twins become conjoined in the mother’s womb but only one of them develops, was made more common by the disclosure.
The illness was identified after the girl was treated for her big head and issues with movement-related physiological functions, according to a study that was published in the Neurology journal.
The unborn twin’s foetus had grown in the host child’s brain, according to the Shanghai doctors’ initial inspection. Due to the continuous blood flow, the unborn twin was ‘alive,’ but it was not growing any further.
‘An intraventricular fetus-in-fetu, a malformed monochorionic diamniotic twin, was identified in a one-year-old girl with motor delay and enlarged head circumference,’ the study said.
The condition, fetus-in-fetu, is also referred to as parasitic twin.
The fetus-in-fetu or ‘parasitic twin’ cases are rare. However, they have been found earlier as well. In 1997, a foetus was discovered inside the abdomen of a 16-year-old teenage boy. In November 2022, eight embryos were removed from the stomach of a 21-day-old infant in Central India’s Jharkhand state.
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