World's longest ectopic pregnancy: How India doctors remove foetus left inside mother for 36 years

New Delhi (AFP) - Doctors in India have removed the skeleton of a foetus that had been inside a woman for 36 years in what is believed to be the world's longest ectopic pregnancy, a doctor has said. The 60-year-old woman became pregnant at the age of 24 but suffered a miscarriage because the foetus had been growing outside of her uterus, the doctor told AFP on Monday.

The woman, from a poor rural area of central India, was "terrified" of having surgery at the time to remove the remains of the foetus, and instead sought medication for the pain at a local clinic.

Although the pain gradually subsided, it returned years later, forcing the woman to seek medical help in a city hospital, Murtaza Akhtar said.

"She came to us complaining of pain in the abdomen," said Akhtar, head of surgery at the N.K.P. Salve Institute of Medical Sciences in the city of Nagpur.

"This is a case in which the woman got pregnant outside the uterus. She told us she was pregnant in 1978 and it was a mature pregnancy," he said.