Unusual Surgery: "Pregnant" 2-Year-Old Boy "Gives Birth" to his own twin

A two-year-old boy from China has undergone an operation to give 'birth' after doctors diagnosed him as 'pregnant'.

Xiao Feng was brought to hospital after his stomach had become so distended that he had begun to suffer breathing difficulties.

Once admitted, doctors took X-rays and Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and discovered that Feng was carrying the undeveloped foteus of his own twin inside his stomach. The boy was then rushed to surgery.

The removed foetus measured 20 cm in width, and had a fully formed spine and limbs, including fingers and toes.

The parasitic twin would have developed into a boy, and had grown so large that almost two thirds of his affected twin's stomach was taken up.

Identical twins form when an egg splits in half after fertilization. But conjoined twins or foetus-in-foetus siblings occur when the egg fails to fully separate. Dr Jonathan Fanaroff, a neonatologist at Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital in Cleveland, said some conjoined twins can survive as 'parasites,' but not when one twin absorbs the other.

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