Ten-month-old baby faces life-saving surgery to remove his own parasitic TWIN growing inside his belly

TWIN TRAUMA

Little Muhammad Abdalul Zikri Hakim's stomach swelled to the size of a small football leaving his parents terrified he had a tumour

A BABY will undergo delicate surgery to remove his TWIN after X-rays revealed it is growing inside his tiny body.

Little Muhammad Abdalul Zikri Hakim's stomach swelled to the size of a small football leaving his parents terrified he had a tumour.

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The parents of Muhammad Abdalul Zikri Hakim raced him to hospital when he belly swelled believing it to be a tumour

But when Indonesian doctors carried out a scan on the ten-month-old, they found the foetus growing inside his belly.

And to the horror of his mum and dad, the foetus is alive and is acting as a parasite inside Muhammad's body leaving him severely weakened and in need of life-saving surgery.

The skeletal outline of a foetus was visible inside the baby boy's abdomen, news.com.au reported.

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The doctors suspect Muhammad is suffering foetus in foetu, a rare condition that occurs in about one in 500,000 births.

It occurs when a foetus becomes enveloped by its twin in the womb.

The foetus survives, but becomes a parasite and remains that way long after its twin's birth.

Shocked medics on the idyllic island of Lombok said they had never witnessed the bizarre condition, which saw Muhammad's tummy swell enormously with dozens of blood vessels clearly visible.

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But when doctors examined the tot they realised his own twin was growing inside his stomach and acting as a parasite while remaining alive

Hospital chief Lalu Hamzi Fikri told ABC: "The tissues are dead tissues but the blood vessels remain alive.

"It's dependent on the main source or parent, which in this case is the baby."

As a result of hosting his parasitic twin, baby Muhammad is severely undernourished and there are concerns for his health in undergoing such major surgery.

A team of specialists, including an obstetrician, surgeon, radiologist, paediatrician, and anaesthetist, is now preparing to conduct the life-threatening operation.

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X-rays revealed the full horror of the condition, which will require medics to carry out delicate life-saving surgery

The hospital's obstetrician Agus Rusdi Hamid told the Jakarta Post that foetus in foetu was an abnormality that occurred mostly in baby boys.

He said the location of the foetus inside the baby's abdomen was a complicating factor, as doctors had to determine if it was attached to a vital organ.

ABC reported that doctors at the basic, holiday island hospital will perform the complicated surgery to remove the foetus.

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Source: Ten-month-old baby faces life-saving surgery to remove his own parasitic TWIN growing inside his belly