One sees some interesting things in animal shelters, especially if involved in the medical treatment of the animals. Today we did a spay-abort surgery on a pregnant cat; two fairly advanced fetal sacs were removed from her, but so too was a slightly smaller mass that was yellow in color.
Yellow is a dangerous color, as it usually indicates a bacterial infection, but this was not the case here. The vet later dissected the mass and found within layers of abdominal tissue the mummified remains of a fetal kitten; the other fetal sacs were normal. He could only speculate on what had happened--either the sac ruptured in the womb or somehow managed to move outside the womb but was treated by the cat's body as a foreign invader. It was encapsulated and isolated, with progressive layers of tissue growing around it while the moisture from the body was reabsorbed into the cat--the result was a mummified fetal kitten surrounded by tough protective tissue that resembled a tumor but would not have been discovered were it not for the surgery--the cat could have lived for years with this mass in her body, but it would probably have complicated future pregnancies.
This happens to humans as well--it's rare, but the result is what's called a "stone baby" and it has at some point to be surgically removed. This was the first time I've seen it happen in a cat....
Yellow is a dangerous color, as it usually indicates a bacterial infection, but this was not the case here. The vet later dissected the mass and found within layers of abdominal tissue the mummified remains of a fetal kitten; the other fetal sacs were normal. He could only speculate on what had happened--either the sac ruptured in the womb or somehow managed to move outside the womb but was treated by the cat's body as a foreign invader. It was encapsulated and isolated, with progressive layers of tissue growing around it while the moisture from the body was reabsorbed into the cat--the result was a mummified fetal kitten surrounded by tough protective tissue that resembled a tumor but would not have been discovered were it not for the surgery--the cat could have lived for years with this mass in her body, but it would probably have complicated future pregnancies.
This happens to humans as well--it's rare, but the result is what's called a "stone baby" and it has at some point to be surgically removed. This was the first time I've seen it happen in a cat....
