Australia: Miracle baby may be a world first

Meet Durga ... Ravi Thangarajah with his newborn
baby girl who survived a full ectopic pregnancy
Photo: ©Brad Fleet
File under: I learn new shit every day. I'd never heard the term "ectopic pregnancy" before. I tend to avoid delivery rooms.

Jesus H Christ with too many children. I seem to have hit on a theme here about miracle babies. First it was this one and now...

IN AN OVARY!!!1!! And the mother didn't know there was a problem?

A Territory baby has been dubbed a miracle after she survived - in what is believed to be a world first - a full-term ovarian pregnancy.

Durga Thangarajah defied the odds and was born at Darwin Private Hospital at 8.47am yesterday after a two-hour delicate operation saw doctors carefully cut her from her mother Meera's right ovary, the Northern Territory News reports.

Doctors are baffled at the medical phenomenon, saying an ovarian pregnancy is one of the rarest variations of ectopic pregnancies and generally have life threatening complications.

Because of the high risk, expecting mothers who present to hospital in the early stages with an ectopic pregnancy are made to abort.

Recovering in her hospital bed last night, Mrs Thangarajah, 34, from Nakara in Darwin's northern suburbs, fought to hold back tears as she told how she had no idea her pregnancy was abnormal.

"I didn't know anything until I woke up after the caesarean and the doctors told me,'' she said.

"I'm feeling like the luckiest woman in the world.''

Mrs Thangarajah and her husband Ravi arrived at the hospital at 6.30am yesterday to have a planned caesarean for their second child.

They thought everything was fine and had no idea what the doctor was going to find.

Obstetrician Andrew Miller told the Northern Territory News he was stunned when he went to perform a caesarean section on Mrs Thangarajah and found the baby squeezed into the right ovary.

He said she was lucky the ovary had not ruptured as the baby grew and stretched the skin, adding that the skin was so thin he could see the baby's hair and facial features through it.

"It could have ruptured at any moment, leaving both mother and baby's lives at risk,'' he said.

Dr Miller said it was a medical phenomenon.

"This form of pregnancy is rare enough, but to have it go full term is unheard of,'' he said. "I have never come across it in any hospital.

Now you know what an ectopic pregnancy is. Remember to check out SPIIDERWEB™ for all the trivia you'll ever need.

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