Phoenix woman gives birth to baby she carried outside of womb

Phoenix woman gives birth to baby she carried outside of womb: In a pregnancy that defied the odds, a Phoenix woman gave birth Monday to a baby she had carried just outside her uterus, a feat so rare that doctors couldn't say for sure whether such a birth had ever occurred before. Azelan Cruz Perfecto began the day in a precarious position, surrounded by a thin wall of membrane and muscle just outside the safety of his mother's womb. Doctors knew they needed to operate to get him out, fearing that if they waited too long, his protective bubble would burst. He was born at 32 weeks, weighing just under 3 pounds.

Doctors originally thought that Soto was carrying the baby in her abdomen, completely outside her uterus. They feared that even if the baby were delivered successfully, there would be grave risk for the mother. The placenta might have attached itself to a vital organ, they feared, making its removal tricky, if they could detach it at all. But after delivering the baby, doctors found that Soto didn't appear to have an abdominal pregnancy, as they thought. Instead, the embryo had attached itself to the area where the fallopian tube meets the uterus, or what is known as a cornual pregnancy.