News

31st August 2005

One in a million baby

A baby has beaten odds of 13 million to one by being born fit and healthy after developing in her mother's abdomen.

Despite repeated scans, doctors at the Lister Hospital in Stevenage only discovered the baby girl was growing in the wrong place when her mother was admitted for a caesarean.

Baby Millie-An Pittman, whose name is a play on the words "one in a million", was delivered weighing 8lb 7oz after her mother, Lisa was rushed in for an emergency caesarean.

The 27-year-old, from Letchworth in Hertfordshire, had been told she would find it hard to have children.

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.

Ms Pittman, who lost 12 pints of blood and needed emergency surgery after the birth, including a bowel operation, said it was only after surgery that the truth became clear.

"I only fully realised what had happened when I came round in intensive care. I had a lot to take in because I had a hysterectomy as well," she said.

"I didn't meet my daughter until three days after she was born because I was very poorly, but when I saw her I was just overwhelmed and I went into mummy mode."

"I'm just happy to be alive and I'm in love with my daughter. I don't feel as though I've lost anything, I've just gained.

"She is my one in a million and that's why I called her Millie-An."

Consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist Douglas Salvesen said Lisa's case was "incredibly rare".

"The odds against one going undetected, reaching full term and for the baby to be delivered and the mother to survive are literally huge," he said.

"In so many ways Millie-An is a very special baby indeed and it's great to hear that she and Lisa are doing so well."

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.

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