PEOPLE: Doctors Discover Full-Term Baby Behind 22-Pound Ovarian Cyst
PEOPLE recently interviewed John Ozimek, DO, medical director of Labor and Delivery at Cedars-Sinai, about a rare abdominal ectopic pregnancy in which a full-term baby was hidden behind a 22-pound ovarian cyst, requiring a complex delivery and surgery to save both mother and child.
“The moment I saw the scan I was a little bit in disbelief,” he told PEOPLE.
The cyst had concealed Suze Lopez’s pregnancy and her condition posed significant risks. Ozimek explained that even taking every single precaution, “there’s always still a chance that nature takes its course and we cannot control the bleeding and there’s the potential that she doesn’t survive the case.”
Ozimek told PEOPLE a team of 30 experts performed the delivery and surgery.
“As soon as that mass was out of the way, there was this baby,” he said. “This 8-pound baby just laying in her abdomen, where it absolutely should not be, with an umbilical cord. And there was still an amniotic sac around this baby. It was just something that your brain can’t quite comprehend.”
Ozimek told PEOPLE Lopez began bleeding heavily during surgery, prompting doctors to perform a hysterectomy to control the bleeding.
“If this would’ve happened somewhere that doesn’t have these resources, there is no way that she would’ve survived, and very unlikely that the baby would’ve survived either,” he said.
Lopez survived and delivered a healthy baby boy. Today both mom and baby are thriving.
Ozimek described the case as “the most miraculous and wonderful outcome” of his years as a high-risk pregnancy specialist.
Read the complete article from PEOPLE.