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Happy Birthday, Kid Formed in Mom's Liver!

Posted by Jen Chaney

Let's all sing a festive round of happy birthday to Nhlahla Ncise, a South African girl who turns five tomorrow. That's a pretty impressive accomplishment, considering she was formed in her mother's liver.

Nhlahla's mother, Cwayita, thought something was wrong during the pregnancy because at six months along, she still wasn't showing. Doctors discovered that her womb was empty because, instead of setting up camp in her uterus, the fertilized egg had attached itself to Cwayita's liver and continued to grow into little Nhlahla.

Doctors performed a complicated procedure to remove the child, successfully giving birth to the baby, who has lived a healthy, normal life ever since. Extrauterine pregnancies like these usually don't have such happy endings. At the time of her birth, Nhlahla was only the fourth child to ever survive a pregnancy like this one.

So happy birthday, Nhlahla. A special twist on this story is the miracle baby's name. It means "luck" in Zulu

Photo: BBC News 


Comments

 

coolteamblt said:

My aunt had a miscarriage because of an embryo attached to her liver. My aunt nearly died, and the baby did. It was horribly tragic. It is really cool to see a successful pregnancy.

May 19, 2008 5:06 PM
 

BLA said:

It's wonderful that they were able to identify the problem, since there was no possible way she could have birthed the child naturally. Hooray for luck!

May 20, 2008 3:57 AM

About Jen Chaney

Jen Chaney is the movies editor and a DVD columnist for washingtonpost.com. Her byline has appeared in The Washington Post, People magazine, USA Today and the Utne Reader as well as various other newspapers around the country. She is the mother of a one-year-old boy, who has not yet learned the word Xanadu. But he will. Trust us, he will.

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