Doctors in Russia have found an inch-long needle in the brain of an 80-year-old woman, most likely inserted when she an infant.
According to a post on Telegram by the Ministry of Health in Sakhalin, radiologists found the three-centimeter long needle during an x-ray scan, embedded in the woman’s left parietal lobe
The woman’s name has not been disclosed and the discovery is said to have occurred in 2023. She is said to have born around the year 1943, making her at least 80.
Officials claim that the needle has been in her brain since infancy, and doctors believe her parents tried to kill her when she was a baby.
The ministry explained that during wars, “some desperate parents would insert a needle into a soft spot of a newborn’s head, where bones in the skull hadn’t yet come together.
“That spot — the fontanelle — would then close and obscure the needle, though the infant would die.”
Such cases were not uncommon during the famine years, the ministry added.
Even though she pulled through the attempted infanticide, she never suffered headaches because of the needle.
Doctors have decided against the removal of the needle because a surgery can worsen her condition, the ministry highlighted.
The woman is currently being monitored by a physician, and her health is not in danger.
According to Insider, Sakhalin is an island with a population of around 500,000 in the Sea of Okhotsk in north of Japan’s Hokkaido.
Sakhalin was divided amongst the Soviet Union and the Japanese Empire in the early 20th century and was later fully seized by Moscow during World War II.
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