‘Durga’ means Goddess. It’s also the name of one newborn baby girl, called so because ‘she is our little deity’, said her beaming father, Ravi Thangarajah. Doctors are calling her a ‘miracle baby,’ who’s chances of survival were one in a million.
For nine months, Meera Thangarajah and her husband Ravi were completely unaware their baby was anything but normal. It was only during the birth, at just before full term, that midwives realized the baby had been growing in her mother’s ovary instead of the womb.
An ovarian pregnancy is one of the rarest variations of ectopic (or out of the womb) pregnancies, which can have life-threatening consequences for the mother. Dr. Andrew Miller, who delivered the child by caesarian section in Australia’s Northern Territory, said he never came across anything like it. He said he was astonished that the mother’s ovary did not stretch and break as the child grew, which could have caused deadly internal bleeding. ‘It truly is a miracle she got a living baby out of it – she’s extraordinarily lucky.’ Both baby Durga and her mother are completely healthy.
The extraordinary birth was the culmination of an apparently normal pregnancy, with the parents and doctors never suspecting that anything had gone wrong. There had been no complications during the pregnancy and even regular ultrasound tests had shown nothing unusual. Had doctors realized it was ectopic earlier on, they would have advised the couple to abort the baby. The mother’s ovary could have burst at any time, endangering the lives of both mother and baby.
Indeed, as Dr Miller began performing the operation he could not believe his eyes – the baby was squeezed into the right ovary. The skin was stretched so thin that he could see the baby’s hair and facial features through it.
When Mrs. Thangarajah heard what had happened, she was understandably amazed. “I didn’t know anything about it until I woke up after the Caesarean and the doctors told me. I’m feeling like the luckiest woman in the world.”
Her husband feels the same way. “Not only do I feel lucky – the doctors have told me I’m one of the luckiest of men at the moment.”
Read more about this incredible birth at Daily Mail.