Miracle baby beats odds to survive in mother’s abdomen

A BABY has beaten odds of 13 million to one to be born fit and healthy despite having grown in her mother’s abdomen instead of her womb.

British doctors only realised Millie-An Pittman was in the wrong place when they performed an emergency Caesarean on her mum Lisa - who had originally been told she would find it hard to have children.

The baby, whose name is a play on words on “one in a million”, was delivered successfully weighing 8lb 7oz in one of only 100 such cases in the world ever. She is now four weeks old.

Abdominal pregnancy, which occurs in one in 10,000 cases, is usually spotted early and terminated because it puts the mother’s life in danger. The risk of death is nearly 1 in 200.

Despite repeated scans during a painful pregnancy, Millie-An’s astonishing position beneath her mother’s stomach was never noticed.

Lisa, 37, who lost 12 pints of blood and needed emergency surgery after the birth, including a full hysterectomy and a bowel operation, said it was only as the incisions were made that the truth became clear.

“I was trying to be induced,” she told GMTV.

“It was only the fact that she wasn’t coming after trying so hard for so long they decided to do the C-section. She was growing in my abdomen.

“The placenta had fused itself to the bowel. Apparently there’s oxygen and so forth being fed to the bowel so she was basically getting everything she wanted.

“I was quite poorly to begin with. It took me three days of recovery to get to even meet her.”

Lisa, from Letchworth in Hertfordshire, added: “When I thought I couldn’t have children in the beginning, I always said if I ever had a little girl I’d have to call her Millie-An, because it’s one in a million that I would ever have a baby. And then she turned out to be one anyway.”

Pregnancy expert Dr Sarah Jarvis told the programme: “It’s just astonishing. There’s only ever been 100 cases in the world ever.

Dr Jarvis said it was “bizarre” that Millie-An’s position had not been noticed.

“That’s what makes this doubly amazing. We don’t use the word miracle very often.”

Millie-An’s position is thought to be the result of an extremely rare form of ectopic pregnancy - in which the egg develops outside the womb.

Normally in such cases the fertilised egg implants itself in one of the fallopian tubes on its way to the womb. But it can also fall out the tube and implant anywhere in the abdomen.