Miracle babies outwit nature and the knife

No baby deserves the epithet “miracle” more than Durga Thangarajah, who grew to full term in her mother’s abdomen and was safely delivered last week after being fertilised in her ovary. She is the only child in Australia -- and possibly the world -- to survive a full-term ovarian pregnancy. Attending obstetrician Andrew Miller, of Darwin Private Hospital, said it “truly is a miracle” that Mrs Meera Thangarajah “got a living baby out of it”. Ovarian pregnancies are the rarest form of ectopic pregnancies and occur when the egg fails to travel down the fallopian tube and into the uterus. Ovarian pregnancies are regarded as a life-threatening complication and are usually terminated before 10 weeks. ~ Herald Sun (Australia), May 31

In Britain another baby has astonished everyone -- most of all his mother -- by surviving an abortion at eight weeks and making his presence known 11 weeks later. His mother, Jodie Percival, and her fiancé had already lost one child and their second was born with a serious kidney condition. She conceived while taking the contraceptive pill and decided she could not cope with the strain of having a third sick baby who might also die.

At first she was angry that the abortion had failed, and worried because a scan showed this baby had kidney problems too -- caused by a gene the mother carries. However, doctors said the baby would survive and he did, arriving three weeks premature last November with some damage to one kidney but able to live a normal life. “I just couldn’t believe that this child had got through it all and looked so perfect,” said Miss Percival. “I still struggle to believe just what he has fought through. Now he’s here I wouldn’t change it for the world.” ~ Telegraph (UK), June 5  

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