Sunday Word: Lithopedion

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

lith·o·pe·di·on [lith′əpē′dē·ən]:
origin: (10th Century by Al-Zahrawi) Greek [λίθος παιδίον]; lithos= stone + paidion= child.

noun
"Stone Baby"

A very rare medical condition describing a fossilized infant found inside of a female patient.

This occurs when a child dies from ectopic pregnancy (pregnancy outside the womb), yet the fetus is too large to simply be reabsorbed by the body, and so a protective layer of calcium forms to separate the biological tissues and prevent infection to the mother; ostembryon; calcified fetus.

Eventually the entire corpse ossifies and may not be discovered until many years later. It's usually found during a full medical examination or from X-ray. This article describes a 92 year old woman "giving birth" to her 60 year old child, under just such circumstances.


Less than 300 cases have ever been recorded.

Comments

[med_cat]

Very interesting; never heard of this before.

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

I was hoping in particular that you'd find this word intriguing.

[med_cat]

I certainly did, both the word and the story in the link; thanks!

[calzephyr77.livejournal.com]

The human body never fails to fascinate!

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

It's a walking Murphy's Law.

[slfcllednowhere.livejournal.com]

This is REALLY WEIRD.

[trellia-chan.livejournal.com]

Whoa!!!! O_O That's amazing.

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

The photo shown is one of the less gruesome, although I say that with awe because I really appreciated the medical images, though I did not wish to go out of my way to disturb others (though I wanted to make it clear what the word meant).

Equally amazing is the 10th century (so the year 900+) Muslim doctor who made many advances in medicine and most importantly birthing issues; he called his students his children and was a gentle, remarkable soul altogether: Al-Zahrawi. *linked in the word origin

[trellia-chan.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to imagine how it must have been for this lady, having no choice but to go on with her life and ignore it for so many years!

Al-Zahrawi is certainly worth remembering. I think there are an awful lot of people out there who don't even know there was once a Golden Age of Islam.

[theidolhands.livejournal.com]

I think there are an awful lot of people out there who don't even know there was once a Golden Age of Islam.

Agreed and that is too bad, I'm happy to learn from any ancient culture; I really pine for it.

At the same time though, I did not feel it was fair not to discuss a cultural trend in the negative such as "taharrush jamai" if it happens to extend from part of the same culture; a trend that will have to cease in the Western world at least and should absolutely not be permitted to continue.