An 80-year-old woman lived with a 3cm-long needle found in her brain after a horrific incident as a baby.
Doctors discovered the elderly woman had been the victim of a failed attempt to kill her by her parents in World War II when families faced a struggle for survival and some resorted to infanticide.
But they only discovered the needle after she had a CT scan of her brain for another reason. They did not, however, remove the needle, which was not causing any issues as surgery could make things worse.
It was in a soft spot in the top of her head called the fontanelle where the needle entered her brain. The Russian woman is originally from Sakhalin, an island north of Japan.
Health authorities in Sakhalin said on a messaging platform Telegram: “The needle penetrated her left parietal lobe, but it did not have the intended effect – the girl survived.”
The woman is thought to have been born in 1943 when Russia which was then called the Soviet Union was fighting off German attempts to win control of Stalingrad.
A famine in the Soviet Union is estimated have killed some 11 million people. The situation was so dire that many families resorted to killing their newborn babies.
The Sakhalin health ministry said: “Such cases during years of famine were not uncommon.” By jabbing a needle in a baby’s head, the fontanel would quickly close, so the traces of the crime vanished, and the tot would die.
Sakhalin health officials said: “The patient’s health is not in danger; her condition is being monitored by the attending physician.”
