Baby beats odds after surviving in mother’s liver

LITTLE Nhlahla couldn’t have a more appropriate name. Meaning ‘luck’, Nhlahla was born this week after developing in her mother’s liver instead of in the womb.

While there have been 14 documented cases of children developing in this manner, Nhlahla is only the fourth baby to survive such a pregnancy.

She was born last Tuesday in South Africa following a difficult delivery operation. Doctors only discovered last week that Nhlahla was not located in her mother's womb.

Nhlahla was immediately put on oxygen after her birth, when she weighed a healthy 2.8kg, but was breathing without aid yesterday.

Doctors said Nhlahla and her mother Ncise Cwayita, 20 whose first baby was born normally were both doing well.

Liver specialist Professor Jack Krige, who helped deliver the baby, told a South African newspaper: "She is the real thing. She is truly a miracle baby."

When an egg is fertilised, it travels down the fallopian tube to the womb, where it implants and grows. However, sometimes the embryo implants in the fallopian tube, which is known as an ectopic pregnancy.

In around one in 100,000 pregnancies it falls out of the fallopian tube and can implant anywhere in the abdomen.

In extremely rare cases, such as this one, the embryo attaches itself to the liver, a very rich source of blood.

The baby is protected because it is within the placenta but it does not have the usual protection of the womb.

Most babies in extrauterine (out of the uterus) pregnancies die within a few weeks. In this case, doctors only discovered the baby was growing in the liver when they performed a scan on the mother this week.

Her womb was found to be empty, even though her baby was due in a week.

Ms Cwayita was then transferred to the Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town.

Dr Bruce Howard told the Cape Argus newspaper said: "We knew it was an extrauterine pregnancy but we didn't know it was in the liver until we started the operation on Tuesday morning."

Doctors found a small "window" where the amniotic sac connected with the outside of the liver where they were able to go in to deliver the baby.

Doctors had to leave the placenta and amniotic sac in the liver, because the mother's life would have been at risk.

It is expected they will be absorbed back into her body.