Chinese classic comes to life as baby born with piece of 'jade'

HANGZHOU - In the Chinese classic "Dream of Red Mansions," the main character Jia Baoyu was depicted as being born with a magical piece of jade in his mouth.

The story seemed to come true when a girl was born in east China's Zhejiang Province with a transparent egg-shaped "jade" object.

According to the People's Hospital of Tiantai County, the object, identified as a peritoneal loose body, was about the size of the girl's palm and fell out of the mother's abdomen during her C-Section operation.

"Everyone present was shocked," said obstetrician Pan Yuxia. "We continued with the operation after making sure that all was well and a healthy baby girl was born weighing 2.8 kilograms."

The pathology of peritoneal loose bodies is not entirely clear, but they are presumed to be formed from epiploic appendages, small pouches of fat situated in the colon, that transform into masses and can be found floating inside people's abdomens.

There are only a dozen documented cases worldwide of peritoneal loose bodies with diameter over 5 cm and one as transparent as this is rarely seen, Pang said.

"Great literature comes from real life," a user named Sdanler said on microblogging platform Weibo.

Another user, Fuyuliuhao1, said the baby's name should have the character Yu, which means jade in Chinese.