A pregnant woman with long-standing, retained intraabdominal glass shards who gave birth to a live infant with no complications: a case report

TL;DR

A pregnant woman with retained glass shards from an injury gave birth without complications, highlighting the need for careful monitoring in such cases.

Contribution

This is the first reported case of a live birth in a pregnant woman with retained intraabdominal glass shards.

Findings

The patient carried the pregnancy to term despite retained glass shards.

Computed tomography was effective in visualizing the glass fragments.

Conservative management allowed for term delivery without complications.

Abstract

Most cases of traumatic injury during pregnancy involve blunt trauma, with penetrating trauma being uncommonly rare. In glass shard injuries, fragments often penetrate deeply, and multiple injuries may occur simultaneously; attention must be paid to the possibility of organ injury from the residual fragments. However, no case of this occurring during pregnancy has been reported yet.

We present the case of a 34-year-old pregnant Cameroonian woman who retained intraabdominal glass shards following a penetrating injury at 13 weeks gestation and not diagnosed until 22 weeks gestation. Notably, this patient continued the pregnancy without complications and gave birth via cesarean section at 36 weeks gestation.

In pregnant women sustaining a penetrating glass trauma during pregnancy, careful attention should be paid to the fragments; in that case, computed tomography is a useful modality for accurately visualizing any remaining fragments in the body. Essentially, the foreign bodies in glass shard injuries during pregnancy should be removed immediately, but conservative management for term delivery is an important choice for patients at risk for preterm delivery.

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