Case1 Freaky

Well for my first out of the ordinary case in my practice, have you seen the movie "Hell Boy"? It was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this infant although this baby was a female. I honestly believe that all children are a blessing. But due to some unexplainable circumstances deformities may give you goosebumps every now and then. Two years ago we have this pregnant patient who complained of not going into labor even though it was past her due date which is already a month ago! In medical field we call this postmaturity wherein the baby has past the 42 weeks of gestation. As I have said before mostly our patients belongs to the low socio-economic group, most of the times pre-natal check-ups were not done. So this patient came in with no history of check-up, no vitamins, much more no Ultrasound. With her complaint was she can't feel her baby moving at all. After doing the examination to her, we can't appreciate any fetal heart beat nor movement. And computing the weeks she has been pregnant for the sum of 46weeks! she has been pregnant for 11 months already! At that time we still have an Obstetrician so we referred the patient to him. We have an outdated Ultrasound Machine which we used for knowing the presentation of the baby in the womb and detecting heartbeat and movement of the fetus. But the results wouldn't be official since we were not trained to do so. If the patient can't afford a private sonologist we are like walking in the dark, expect the unexpected. So the decision of the OB was to induce labor, since the patient has no fever, no bleeding, we still have time to wait hoping for a normal delivery. Two days after, during our rounds we would ask her if she feels any contractions, any pain and she would answer there was none. Finally the OB decided to do a Cesarean Section, meaning we would deliver the baby operatively. So the mother was scheduled for an operation. After the preparation was made, OR was started and I was not the one who assisted in the OR, I manned the Emergency Area. Few minutes after the OR has started there was a call inside for our Surgeon. I immediately called from my cellphone our Chief of Hospital who is already on His way home. This could be serious, it was only during rare times that our OB would refer to the Surgeon. After finishing with a patient in the ER i went inside the OR to see how things are. And VIOLA! there in the bassinet i saw the strangest looking baby I have ever seen. She was so red as if the first layer of the skin was stripped off. She got 4 fangs as if looking like a vampire, with a cleft lip. I hurriedly took my camera and snap some shots. You see I go on duty with a stethoscope on my hand and a camera on the other to document some rare cases like this. Even though the baby has no life anymore we still blessed her with water as to Baptized her. The Surgeon was called out because the OB can't make an incision on the uterus, the intestines are adhering all together, as if the uterus has been eaten up. The mother didn't feel any contractions whatsoever because the uterus was contracted all this time, it was described as hard as a rock. The uterus was so damaged that it was impossible to save it for the mother to bear child again for this was her first pregnancy. There was a buzz in the hospital that the baby has eaten up her mother's uterus.


The relatives scaredly accepted the baby, which was buried at that same day. The next day while doing our rounds there was already a circulating story about this patient. Being in the province you will still hear that these people still believes in witchcraft, quack doctors, self proclaimed prophet and so on and so forth. It seems that the mother left her husband to be with another man who got her pregnant, his ex made a curse that no man will ever have her. Well this was their interpretation of why she had this kind of pregnancy. Well as i have already told you we are in the province where this reasoning is still acceptable.


Our explanation....the patient had a postmaturity pregnancy where lot of factors has contributed to it. It may be because the baby is big for her age, take note that this patient has no check-up at all, no vitamins taken, and she was in a lot of stress. Maybe at the course of pregnancy, she did had mild contractions that she didn't take seriously of, the baby became distressed died in the process. Infection sets in, the mother didn't had any fever because the infection didn't entered her blood stream, it was contained in the uterus. Self defensively the uterus contracted to prevent further damage, when the infection slowly is finding its way out, the intestines and the recognized the threat, they plunged into the affected part of the uterus and made themselves some form of barrier to stop the infection causing them to adhere with each other. The baby is in the early stage of decomposition that is why she looked that way and she did have some abnormalities which may be due to nutrition, genetics, stress and many other factors. So to all the mother to be out there, and also those planning to be one. Have your regular check-up, take your vitamins and relax pregnancy is just temporary...but your child would be permanent.