Beiruting News

A one-year-old girl has survived surgery to remove her unborn twin's foetus from her swollen stomach.

Kang Mengru was abandoned at birth and was taken in by a childless couple in Luohe City, in the central Chinese province of Zhenzhou.

Within months, her stomach began to swell and superstitious neighbours began calling the little girl a 'monster' and gossiping that she was pregnant.

Medical scans revealed Kang was actually carrying the parasitic foetus of her unborn twin in her belly.

A doctor told Kang's worried foster parents: 'She will die unless she has the surgery immediately.'

After 10 hours of complex surgery to remove the foetus, Kang's family have been told she can return home at the end of the month having made a full recovery.

Chief surgeon Dr Zhang Xuedong told The Sun: 'She will be able to go home at the end of the month, with her mother Wang Guihua and father Kuang Xiqing.

'There was a very real risk of cardiac arrest. The pressure within the child's chest and belly was very great but now she is out of danger.'

But Kang's foster family had to rely on donations to be made to a fund set up by local government in order to pay for the surgerty.