[The association of an abdominal pregnancy and an intrauterine pregnancy in the 3rd trimester. Apropos of a case and review of the literature]

Abstract

We observed a twin pregnancy during the third trimester with one intra-abdominal and one intrauterine infant. The first child was delivered via the normal vaginal route and the second via emergency laparotomy. Both infants were live at birth and the outcome was quite favourable for the mother and the two infants. A review of the literature confirmed the extreme rarity of such cases, and the almost unknown favourable outcome. Different pathophysiological mechanisms may have led to this rare combination of twin pregnancies and several points of the clinical course suggest how the diagnosis could have been made earlier during the pregnancy. Therapeutic problems related to abdominal pregnancy and questions of ethics are raised in case of early diagnosis.