A woman carried a 'stone baby' in her abdomen for 3 years — Diagnostic dilemma

A woman's unexplained abdominal pain led doctors to a diagnosis that has only been documented a few hundred times over the past 400 years.

The patient: A 42-year-old woman in Somaliland, Africa

The symptoms: The woman went to the hospital after having three years of chronic, dull pain in her lower abdomen, as well as a growing sense of heaviness in her abdomen that had worsened in recent months.

When doctors reviewed her medical history, they learned that, three years earlier, she had experienced a number of symptoms that seemed to indicate a pregnancy. She recalled her abdomen growing over time and feeling "fetal movements," her doctors noted in a report of the case. Then, the movements stopped, the abdominal growth halted, and the enlargement gradually subsided.…