Terrifying 40-Year-Old Fetus Found Inside an Old Lady

In case you thought having a twin absorbed into your body after not developing in the womb wasn't bad enough there's this... An 82 year old Columbian woman was admitted into a city hospital for stomach pains which her doctors believe to be the more common gastroenteritis.  That wasn't what they found. X-Rays of the woman's abdomen revealed a calcified fetus, a condition that is known as Lithopedion or "stone baby."  The condition is so rare that there are only 300 known cases in the world.  The condition starts out as an ectopic pregnancy, where the fetus gets stuck on its way to the womb and develops outside of the uterus.  If the baby is too large to be reabsorbed into the body, it then goes through a mummification process, becoming calcified in order to protect the mother from the decaying body. Luckily the woman is being transferred to another hospital to have the fetus removed... Looking at the silver lining here...it's amazing what the human body can do, and does, in order to protect itself from catastrophe.  A decaying body inside a woman is a life threatening situation.  Ever wonder why the placenta is always checked to make sure its intact?  It's because if even a sliver of the placenta is left inside the mother it can cause severe health issues and in some cases death if it isn't caught in time.  The very fact that the human body can protect itself for 40 years without any health complications is astounding.  Just another reason to be thankful for your body.