REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAMBI -- The doctors at the Raden Mattaher Hospital removed a mummified fetus, believed to have died and calcified some 37 years ago outside the womb of a 60-year-old woman in Jambi.

"The fetus was already calcified when we removed it. It turned out to be mummified," Iwan Hendrawan, acting director of the Raden Mattaher Hospital, stated here, Tuesday.

The mother, a resident of Tanjungjabung Timur District, was unaware of the fetus she was carrying in her abdominal cavity for years. The rare phenomenon was revealed when a doctor conducted a health check up on her recently.

According to Hendrawan, the calcified fetus was removed during a surgery at the hospital on Monday. "The patient was handled by Dr Parianto Spog during a 2.5-hour surgery on Monday," he remarked.

The phenomenon called lithopedion is a rare case, Iwan stated, adding that scientists have found 300 cases in the world during the past four centuries. Lithopedia may occur from 14 weeks of gestation to full term. It occurs most commonly when a fetus dies during an abdominal pregnancy.

It is not unusual for a stone baby to remain undiagnosed for decades, and it is often not until a patient is examined for other conditions or a proper examination is conducted, including an X-ray, that a stone baby is detected.

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