My Shocking Story: I Gave Birth To A Mummy - Thursday 27th October, 10.00pm

UK Premiere

This is the fascinating story of a woman who carried her foetus for almost half a century. In this programme, her doctor, surgeon and globally renowned obstetricians will help unravel how Zahra’s baby died, how it managed to survive inside her for so long and why it never killed her.

Zahra Aboutalib’s extraordinary story began in 1955, when her waters broke and she went to hospital to give birth. While there, she saw a woman and her baby die during a Caesarean section and terrified, she fled the hospital. In Moroccan culture, it is believed that babies can live inside a woman’s womb to protect her honour and Zahra took on this belief: the myth of the ‘sleeping baby’.

Zahra forgot about her ‘sleeping baby’ for over forty years until she was struck down with crippling stomach pains. On the maternity ward, her ‘sleeping baby’ was captured on ultra sound. Her foetus had developed in her fallopian tubes as an ectopic pregnancy. Most ectopic pregnancies end in miscarriage or a termination, as they are the leading cause of pregnancy-related deaths, but Zahra’s baby had defied all odds and although dead, it had been accepted as just another organ.