Chicago Med Season 10: Can What Happened To MK Happen In Real Life?

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As a medical history enthusiast with a knack for unraveling fact from fiction, I found the latest episode of Chicago Med, “Bad Habits,” to be a fascinating exploration of real-life medical mysteries. The storyline featuring Mary Katherine Trembley’s ‘stone baby’ was particularly intriguing, as it delved into a rare yet very real phenomenon that has left its mark on our medical records throughout history.

Contains spoilers for “Chicago Med” Season 10, Episode 5 — “Bad Habits”

During the spooky festivities of Halloween, Chicago Gaffney Medical Center encountered some unexpected challenges in “Bad Habits,” dealing with challenging patients, staff dressed in costumes, and medical situations that were far from ordinary. One particularly puzzling case involved Mary Katherine Trembley, or MK (Ellen Adair), a nun who complained of abdominal pain to emergency department doctor Mitch Ripley (Luke Mitchell). Initially, Ripley believed it was just a case of diverticulitis due to her indulgence in Halloween sweets. However, an ultrasound carried out by Ripley uncovered something astonishing — the image of a baby’s face on the ultrasound scan.

Ripley consults the returning obstetrician Hannah Asher (Jessy Schram) to confirm his suspicion. She concurs that it appears to be a newborn. She inquires about MK, and she discloses a past miscarriage decades earlier. It is later discovered that her unease arises from a lithopedion or ‘stone baby’ – a fetus solidified within the womb due to an immune response and left untouched for many years after its demise. In MK’s case, hormonal fluctuations due to perimenopause caused her body’s conditions to alter.

Is an event similar to this possible in our world? Certainly, as evidenced by numerous instances of what are often referred to as “stone babies,” found across different time periods.

‘Stone babies’ can happen in real life

Over the years, numerous cases of “stone babies,” or mummified fetuses carried by women for extended periods, have been reported. For instance, in 2009, a woman in China, then 92 years old, gave birth to a 60-year-old fetus that she had been carrying for decades. Similarly, in 2015, a woman from Chile underwent surgery to remove a 60-year-old fetus she had been carrying within her body. In 2013, a woman in Colombia discovered she was pregnant with a fetus that had resided within her for 40 years; due to her age (82), they opted not to perform an operation on her.

A lack of obstetric care can often lead to stone babies developing. And they can be dangerous. Dr. Natalie Burger, then an endocrinologist and fertility specialist at Texas Fertility Center, told NBC News in 2009 that a whole host of complications can be spawned from stone babies, including fertility issues, intestinal obstructions, and pelvic abscesses. Since they can grow to be as large and heavy as a living, full-term child, they can be quite bothersome. But they can be asymptomatic as well — just as they are for MK on “Chicago Med.” It goes to show how deep the show’s research can be, even if it’s sometimes medically inaccurate — and how important obstetric care is.

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2024-10-25 08:29