Chilean woman carries stone baby in womb for 60 years

A woman from Chile has been pregnant for the past 60 years, it has emerged.

Estela Melendez, who is 91 years old, got the surprise of a lifetime when she discovered that the lump in her stomach which she initially thought was a tumour was in fact a calcified foetus.

Ms Melendez, said in an interview with CNN: "The doctor said I had a tumour and that they needed to operate on me."

The discovery was made after she went for a second x-ray.

 The syndrome, known as a lithopedion or a ‘stone baby’ occurs when a pregnancy goes wrong and the calcified layer that forms around the foetus protects the mother from its dead tissue.

It was first discovered in the 10th century, with the calcification usually occurring when an abdominal pregnancy — one that occurs outside the womb, somewhere inside the mother’s abdomen — goes wrong.

Although abdominal pregnancies usually end in miscarriage, the mother's body can usually reabsorb the tissue if a foetus is small enough.

If on the other hand it is too big, then an operation is usually carried out to remove it. 

If this does not occur, then it can lead to lithopedion.

Ms Melendez had been married to her now deceased husband Manuel Gonzalez for 74 years but the couple had been unable to have children together.

Although doctors had initially considered removing the foetus, they decided it would be too risky considering her age.

While it is possible for some patients with abdominal lithopedions to give birth to healthy children at the same time, in Melendez's case, the size of the foetus meant that this could not occur.