Ladyparts (or lack thereof)

United States, May 2011 A 27-year-old Arizona woman gave birth last month to a 2lb 4oz baby boy. At 32 weeks' gestation, he was premature, which is not that unusual. What makes this case so strange is that the fetus developed outside the uterus. The placenta attached to the outside uterine wall and the embryo had attached itself to where the fallopian tube meets the uterus. In most cases of ectopic (also called cornual or interstitial) pregnancy, the tube ruptures or surgery is performed to prevent hemorrhage, ending the pregnancy by the 12-14th week. In this case, the woman was 18 weeks along before she knew she was pregnant and doctors could warn her about the life-threatening danger to her and the baby. Carefully monitored, the fetus was allowed to continue developing outside the womb surrounded by a thin wall of membrane and muscle. A member of the medical team, Dr. Rodney Edwards, found no previous cases in the medical literature of a live baby being delivered from such a pregnancy. "This is just a case that proves, in medicine, nothing happens 'always' or 'never,'" he said.

Lesotho, 1988 A 15-year-old girl got pregnant despite the fact that she did not have a vagina. According to the case report published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the young woman - who had Müllerian agenesis (also called Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser (MRKH) Syndrome) - came to the attention of doctors when she showed signs of going into labor. With only a shallow dimple where her vagina should have been, they delivered a healthy baby boy via cesarean. They were as surprised as she was. Hospital records showed that she had been treated nearly 9 months earlier for a knife wound to her stomach. She had been stabbed by a former lover who caught her having oral sex with her new boyfriend. "A plausible explanation for this pregnancy is that spermatozoa gained access to the reproductive organs via the injured gastrointestinal tract," wrote the authors of the case study. Her stomach was empty at the time, so it would have contained little acid. Once the sperm were inside the abdominal cavity, they could have survived for days until they reached an egg before or after it was taken up by the fallopian tube. The girl could only have ovulated once or twice, since the accumulation of menstrual fluid of several periods would have been excruciatingly painful, in addition to making it even more unlikely for a pregnancy to occur. "Here's an unbelievable set of coincidences. But it's totally plausible," said Dr. Richard Paulson, head of a Los Angeles fertility clinic.

Sweden, June 2011 A 25-year-old woman who was also diagnosed with MRKH syndrome and has no reproductive organs hopes to borrow her mother's uterus to have a baby. Unlike other stories you may have read in the weird news, the grandmother-to-be will not be giving birth to her own grandchild, but has agreed to donate her womb for transplant into her daughter. If the ground-breaking transplant is successful, the daughter hopes to have her own eggs fertilized using her boyfriend’s sperm and then implanted. She was unconcerned about the implications of receiving the womb that she herself was carried in. Said her Mom, “My daughter and I are both very rational people and we both think ‘it’s just a womb.’ She needs the womb and if I’m the best donor for her…well, go on. She needs it more than me. I’ve had two daughters so it’s served me well."