A Brazilian woman named Layana Santos recently experienced what would be considered any woman's worst nightmare: The expectant mom-to-be woke up to a C-section only to be told she was never pregnant. Wait … what? Yes, 19-year-old Santos says she believes that doctors stole her newborn baby girl and are covering it up by telling her that the pregnancy was all in her head. Why would someone do this though?
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Santos says she was 38 weeks pregnant when she was rushed to Santa Casa de Maua maternity hospital in Sao Paulo this past December after suffering from severe abdominal pain and blood loss. Santos explained that shortly after receiving anesthetic she passed out and woke up hours later to be told what she had experienced was a "phantom pregnancy."
Believe it or not, this is actually a real condition. "Phantom pregnancy" (known in medicine as Pseudocyesis) is caused when a woman experiences pregnancy symptoms that were caused by something else entirely. Women with "phantom pregnancy" have many, if not all symptoms of pregnancy with the exception of the actual fetus.
According to reports, Santos claims that she had been receiving pre-natal treatment throughout her entire pregnancy. She even had an ultra-sound scan in the final weeks of her pregnancy that showed that her baby girl weighed 7 lbs. and measured 42 cm. I mean isn't that enough evidence to prove this woman really was pregnant?
But doctors claim they were not able to find a baby in Santo's womb and that the pregnancy had been purely psychological. A spokesman for the Santa Casa de Maua hospital claims that the exams performed before the "delivery" prove that Santos was not carrying a baby. Leila Salomao, Santo and her husband's attorney, is looking to seize the hospital records relating to the incident. And Uesley Lima, the doctor involved in Santo's pre-natal treatment has said she will be a witness if there winds up being a criminal case brough against the hospital.
I honestly don't blame this poor woman for believing that the hospital had something to do with her baby's disappearance. As much as they'd like us all to believe that Santos was experiencing a "phantom pregnancy," so far all evidence seems to be leading in the opposite direction. If this woman really was experiencing a false pregnancy then explain to me what in the world was her doctor seeing when she took her ultra-sound scan? Not to mention, she did arrive to the hospital with severe pains and bleeding that can easily mean something went wrong during the delivery. I just hope that this poor woman is able to seek justice and find out what really happened.
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