Doctor stitches mother’s womb keeping another baby inside

Khadija Begum from Comilla was seven-month pregnant when her ultrasonography report declared that she was to expect twins.

But at the time of delivery on September 18, Dr Seikh Hosne Ara from Gouripur Life Hospital and Digital Diagnostics of Daudkandi found only a baby girl and a “tumour” inside her, Khadiza’s cousin Faisal Ahmed told The Daily Star.

They brought the baby girl out and stitched the womb up keeping the assumed tumour inside. The baby was healthy and is doing fine now.

However, within 12 days into her caesarian operation, Khadiza started experiencing pain and sufferings and had another ultrasonography done.

Surprisingly enough, this ultrasound report again confirmed that she really was supposed to have twin babies and the other baby was still within her, but probably dead.

Later, she was admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital (DMCH) on Sunday and an operation was conducted on her to remove the dead baby from her womb today.

It was a boy weighing two kilograms. He was laid to rest in Khilgaon Graveyard this afternoon.  However, the mother is out of danger now, DMCH sources said.

Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of the DMCH, Salma Rouf, told The Daily Star that Khadiza had experienced a very rare phenomenon where one baby of the twins develops within the uterus and another outside of it.

"It was hardly one month before I performed a caesarian of a patient. When I opened her uterus, I got a baby there but Ultrasono had suggested a twin baby inside the uterus. I noticed there was another suspicious object outside uterus. In that situation, it was complicated so I suggested them to refer immediately at DMCH. But patient's guardian did not go to DMCH. Even I phoned them personally to take the patient immediately at DMCH. But they did not do it," Dr Seikh Hosne Ara, who performed the first operation on Khadiza, told The Daily Star.

A Mobile court, however, today closed and locked down Gouripur Life Hospital and Digital diagnostic as it has no government affiliation.