Chilean boy born with fetus in his stomach

updated 2:13 p.m. ET Nov. 24, 2006

SANTIAGO, Chile - A boy has been born in Chile with a fetus in his stomach in what doctors said was a rare case of "fetus in fetu" in which one twin becomes trapped inside another during pregnancy and continues to grow inside it.

Doctors carried out a scan on the boy's mother shortly before she gave birth on Nov. 15 in the southern city of Temuco and noticed the 4-inch-long fetus inside the boy's abdomen.

It had limbs and a partially developed spinal cord but no head and stood no chance of survival, doctors said.

After the birth, doctors operated and removed the fetus from the boy's stomach. The boy, who has not been named, was recovering at Temuco's Hernan Henriquez hospital.

"It's very rare," said Maria Angelica Belmar, head of the hospital's neonatal wing, speaking of fetus in fetu cases.

"It occurs in only one in every 500,000 live births," she told Reuters, adding that the number of cases recorded worldwide was fewer than 90.

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