The Sunday Mail
Under normal circumstances, 21-year-old Idah Nyatwa Kamhoti would have given birth within the last two weeks but she has been holding her little bundle of joy for the past five months now.
Mrs Nyatwa Kamhoti is already enjoying the joys of motherhood and playing with her healthy five-month-old baby from a pregnancy conceived nine months ago.
The child was christened Ropafadzo, which can be loosely translated to blessing.
But society views the blessing as very strange.
Medical experts have concluded that such occurrences are very rare or almost impossible.
In this case, Mrs Nyatwa Kamhoti’s went into labour and gave birth to a baby girl just four months after gestation.
At first, nurses at a clinic in Murehwa empathised with Mrs Nyatwa Kamhoti, assuming she had suffered a miscarriage.
But upon inspecting the blood clots from her reproductive organ, they discovered something strange.
There was movement linked to an umbilical cord.
It was a “small” baby girl.
“On 28 March 2015, I experienced severe stomach and back pains before I was ferried to Murehwa polyclinic. When I arrived at the clinic, I had began bleeding and the nurses said it was a miscarriage.
“Surprisingly, another nurse identified movement in the blood clots I was discharging,” she explained.
“The others looked terrified and seemed clueless on what to do with my baby who risked chocking in the blood.
“I could not believe it. I was just four months pregnant. Even the nurses were in shock and called their colleagues to witness the ‘strange’ birth.”
According to Ropafadzo’s medical report, she weighed 1,03 kilograms at birth and was categorized as a severely premature baby, but all her organs functioned well.
But because of the weight, the child was referred to Murehwa Hospital, which in turn forwarded the case to Marondera General Hospital for close monitoring.
She was kept in incubation for two months before being discharged at a weight of 1,6 kilograms.
From hospital, she was taken to her grandmother’s home in Dombotombo, Marondera.
According to a paediatrician at a Government hospital who could not be named because of the media policy at the institution: “Such pre-term babies tend to have vulnerable lungs that require advanced medical technology. But we do not have such equipment in Zimbabwe.
“However, what could have happened is that the mother may be diabetic. As such the baby experienced abnormal growth while in her mother’s womb. Normally, babies born in about 28 weeks weigh around 500 grams.”
Last Friday, Mrs Nyatwa-Kamhoti, her husband Simbarashe (22) and his mother Gogo Chibanda were at Marondera General Hospital for Ropafadzo’s monthly review.
She was in perfect health and weighed 5,3 kilograms.
