Extra-uterine (abdominal) full term foetus in a 15-day pregnant rabbit - PubMed (original) (raw)

Case Reports

Extra-uterine (abdominal) full term foetus in a 15-day pregnant rabbit

Francisco Marco-Jiménez et al. BMC Vet Res. 2017.

Abstract

Background: While ectopic pregnancies account for 1-2% of all pregnancies, abdominal pregnancy is extremely rare, accounting for approximately 1% of ectopic pregnancies. Extrauterine abdominal pregnancy is defined as the implantation and development of an embryo in the peritoneal cavity. The present report is the first of an incidental case of abdominal pregnancy within four full-term foetus simultaneously with 2 weeks of physiological gestation in a healthy doe rabbit.

Case presentation: The doe was born on November 3, 2014 and the first partum took place on May 18, 2015. The doe had previously delivered and weaned an average of 12.0 ± 1.41 live kits at birth (no stillbirths were recorded) during 5 consecutive pregnancies. The last mating was on December 18, 2015 and the detection of pregnancy failure post breeding (by abdominal palpation) on December 31, 2015. Then, the doe was artificially inseminated on January 27, 2016, diagnosed pregnant on February 11, 2016 and subsequently euthanized to recover the foetus. A ventral midline incision revealed a reproductive tract with 12 implantation sites with 15 days old foetus and 4 term foetus in abdominal cavity. There were two foetus floating on either side of the abdominal cavity and two suspended near the greater curvature of the stomach. They were attached to internal organs by means of one or 2 thread-like blood vessels that linked them to the abdominal surfaces.

Conclusions: In our opinion a systematic monitoring of rabbit breeding should be included to fully understand and enhance current knowledge of this phenomenon of abdominal pregnancy.

Keywords: Abdominal pregnancy; Asymptomatic; Placenta.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval

All the experimental procedures used in this study were performed in accordance with Directive 2010/63/EU EEC on animal experiments and reviewed and approved by the Ethical Committee for Experimentation with Animals of the Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spain (research code: 2015/VSC/PEA/00061).

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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Figures

Fig. 1

Fig. 1

Photograph of rabbit doe without lesions in reproductive tract with abdominal pregnancy with four full-term foetus (asterisks) simultaneously with 2 weeks of physiological gestation, dorsoventral view. a Two free in the abdominal cavity, one showed placental attachments (arrow). b Two attached to the omentum near the stomach, with placental attachments identified (arrows)

Fig. 2

Fig. 2

Photograph of full-term foetus recovered after abdominal gestation. (a) Foetus number 1, 3 and 4 present chorioallantoic placentas, whereas number 2 does not. Foetus 3 and 4 showed fluid in the chorioallantoic sac. (b) Detail of chorioallantoic placentas and the placental cord blood vessels (a). Detail of the maternal and fetal placenta (b). Detail of the amniotic sac and umbilical cord (c)

Fig. 3

Fig. 3

Photograph of reproductive tract and foetus at day 15 of gestation. a Implantation sites. b Recovered foetus. c Microscopic appearance

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