In 1955 in a small village just outside Casablanca, 26 year old Zahra Aboutalib is pregnant with her first child. She was looking forward to giving birth, but after 48 hours of painful labour, she was rushed to the local hospital. Doctors informed her that she would need a caesarean section. On the ward Zahra saw a woman in terrible pain die in child-birth. She fled the hospital fearing she would meet the same fate if she remained.
In the days that followed, Zahra continued to suffer excruciating labour pains but the baby remained resolutely in her womb. After a few more days the pains ceased and the baby stopped moving.
In Moroccan culture, it is believed that a baby can sleep inside the mother to protect her honour. Zahra believed this myth and put the pregnancy out of her mind. She adopted three children and in due course they made her a grandmother.
The Twin Within The Twin - Sanjay Kumar
In India, doctors are operating to remove what they thinks is a massive tumour on a man who looks nine months pregnant. When they cut him open, they are horrified by what they find inside.
Deep inside Sanjay Kumar, possibly also known as Sanju Bhagat, is the body of his twin brother. A half-formed baby that has lain inside him, as a parasite, for thirty six years. Sanjay's story is shocking but every twin pregnancy is fraught with danger. His case is the extreme end of a range of conditions that affect twins in the womb. All too often the journey from conception to birth may be a battle; a battle that can end in death.
May 1999, in the city of Nagpur in India on a hot summer night, thirty six year old Sanjay Kumar is rushed to hospital. His stomach is so swollen he looks nine months pregnant and he can barely breathe. Doctors think he has a giant tumour and decide to operate immediately. Dr Ajay Mehta of the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai recalls "Basically, the tumour was so big that it was pressing on his diaphragm and that's why he was very breathless".
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