A 2-year-old boy in China recently underwent surgery to have his twin's undeveloped fetus removed from his stomach.
Xiao Feng was brought him to the hospital in Huaxi after his parents noticed he was having trouble breathing and his stomach was extremely bloated, Inquisitr reported.
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Doctors there made a disturbing find: the boy was carrying the undeveloped fetus of his twin in his stomach.
Acting as a parasite, the fetus had grown to 10 inches wide and was taking up two-thirds of the boy's stomach, according to Inquisitr's translation of a newscast from China Central Television, a state-run media outlet.
Its spine and limbs were fully formed.
Doctors surgically removed the fetus, saying Feng would have died if they had not.
Conjoined twins like this occur when a fertilized egg begins to split in two, but fails to do so completely. In Feng's case, the fetus was his conjoined twin that had been absorbed into his body inside the womb, according to The Huffington Post.