Abdomen Baby

The patient, a pregnant, 29-year-old Negro woman, had complained for months of severe pains in her abdomen. One day last week, as she approached full term, the pains got worse. In the osteopathic unit of Los Angeles County General Hospital, doctors X-rayed her, found to their astonishment that the uterus was only slightly enlarged. The baby was not there; it was thrashing about in the abdomen, its head under the liver and the rest of its body lodged against the stomach and intestines.

An abdominal pregnancy, especially one that proceeds to full term, is extremely rare, and almost invariably fatal to the baby.* As the doctors wheeled the patient into the hospital's largest amphitheater to operate, word spread quickly; surgeons jammed in to watch the operation, set up a camera to record it in color movies.

Dr. Edward Abbott, assisted by Dr. Charles Mount, made a six-inch midline incision in the abdomen. The patient bled profusely (she got almost eight pints of blood in transfusions). The doctors cut the fetal sac, seized the infant, pulled out a wailing baby girl. Weight: 6 lbs. 6 oz. Condition of mother & daughter at week's end: excellent.

* Abdominal pregnancy results from a freakish failure of the fertilized egg to pass through a Fallopian tube to the uterus. The placenta attaches itself, like a parasite, to abdominal organs or membranes. The pregnancy is painful because the placenta irritates the tissues and the baby kicks the nerve-rich peritoneum (abdominal lining). When they discover the condition, doctors usually operate at once.

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