92-Year-Old Chilean Woman Has Been Living With Fetus Inside Her For 50 Years

Even though it’s hard to define precisely when Estela de las Mercedes Meléndez Jiménez got pregnant, she remembers that the moment she knew the baby was not alive inside her anymore, she went straight to the hospital to have it removed.

Doctors at the Claudio Vicuña Hospital in San Antonio, Chile recently cared for the 92-year-old woman, and discovered that she had been living with a mummified fetus in her uterus for half a century. The remains that inhabited the woman’s womb were the result of an abortion procedure that went wrong, and according to Meléndez it happened about 50 years ago.

Family members of the woman in question gave their declarations to the Chilean newspaper El Líder de San Antonio. Luis Meléndez, Estela de las Mercedes’ nephew, explained: “The thing here is we already knew about it and all the doctors that received my aunt at the hospital, and at the clinics knew it too, but nobody wanted to do anything to help her when there was still a chance. Now, because of her age, they can’t take it out anymore.”

The old woman, who was taken to the hospital after suffering from a fall, admits she wasn’t surprised by the X-ray results, “I always knew the fetus was there because in the end they didn’t do anything to take it out. One of the doctors who saw me told me I had cancer, and that I was going to die in 3 days, so they couldn’t do anything about it.”

Estela has been suffering for almost 50 years due to her condition, unfortunately, this can’t be amended anymore and she will have to live with a 5lbs dead fetus inside her. The old woman is believed to be close to 100 years, it was revealed that she wasn’t registered until the age of 17.