In an extraordinary medical case from 1988 in Lesotho, South Africa, a 15-year-old girl who had no vaginal opening shocked doctors after tests revealed she was nine months pregnant.
The unsuspecting teen was rushed to the hospital, complaining of severe abdominal pain, only to discover she was on the brink of childbirth.
A teen with no vaginal opening was rushed to the hospital—nine months pregnant
Aside from the shock of her unexpected pregnancy, doctors discovered that the girl suffered from a rare condition known as distal vaginal atresia, which leaves the individual without a vaginal opening.
The extraordinary medical case, first documented in the British Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, challenges the conventional understanding of human biology.
The young patient successfully gave birth to a healthy baby
This medical rarity, affecting just one in 10,000 to 15,000 newborn girls, results from a failure in the development of the vaginal canal. Despite this extraordinary birth defect, the young patient successfully delivered her baby.
Doctors and medical experts remain baffled, wondering how conception occurred without a vaginal opening and in the absence of in-vitro fertilization methods.
Despite noticing changes in her body, the girl never thought about pregnancy
The girl reported that, despite noticing changes in her body throughout the nine months she was pregnant, she had never considered the possibility of pregnancy due to her lack of a vaginal opening and penetrative intercourse.
The young woman, who was born without a vaginal opening, however, had previously preferred oral intimacy after multiple unsuccessful attempts at conventional intercourse.
Oral intimacy is believed to have caused the pregnancy
Some doctors believed that the strange nature of her conception may have come to light after hearing a traumatic incident that took place nine months before her delivery. The young girl explained that after an orally intimate encounter, she was attacked by her enraged ex-boyfriend, who stabbed her in the abdomen multiple times after catching her in the act with her then-partner.
Medical professionals tried to piece together the puzzle. According to Dr. Douwe Verkuyl’s hypothesis, the sperm she ingested might have traveled through her wounds to her reproductive organs, which ultimately led to the miraculous pregnancy.
The sperm stayed viable until reaching the uterus
Dr. Douwe Verkuyl’s hypothesis also suggests that while this conception method would be out of the question in a healthy individual, her being malnourished at the time might have possibly prevented the acidity in her stomach from killing the sperm.
So consequently, the hypothesis claims that the sperm stayed viable until reaching the uterus. To everyone’s surprise, the girl gave birth to a healthy 6.2-pound baby boy through a C-section nine months later.
The story from 1988 resurfaced after similar recent events took place
In one such incident, an English teenager vacationing in Turkey for her 18th birthday was rushed to the hospital only to give birth to a surprise baby girl in December 2024. Iona Miller, alongside her mom, Sarah Richardson, spoke to ITV Calendar News, revealing the shocking birth. The young mother was unaware of her pregnancy, attributing her only symptom, persistent back pain, to a rugby injury.
The unexpected discovery came when severe stomach pains, initially suspected to be appendicitis, turned out to be labor contractions. “Iona said, ‘Mum, there’s something between my legs,’ so I pulled the covers up and the baby’s head was there,” Sarah said. Iona was so confused about the situation that she asked her mom, “Whose baby is that?” when she saw her daughter for the first time.
A 24-year-old had a baby after her “cryptic pregnancy”
More recently, a woman left the audience speechless on a This Morning show’s episode, which aired in January 2025. Kayleigh, a childcare worker from England, explained that she only felt sick once after a night out drinking a few weeks before her baby’s birth. However, on Christmas Day in 2024, she and her partner rushed to the hospital after she experienced severe pain, only to give birth after finding out that she had a “cryptic pregnancy.”
Cryptic pregnancy is a medical condition where a pregnant woman doesn’t know that she is pregnant. It is also known as stealth pregnancy or denied pregnancy.
Kayleigh said that since she didn’t know she was pregnant, she spent her pregnancy having adventures around the world. She shared, “I went to Magaluf in July, I worked it out, I must have been three months pregnant when I went to Magaluf.
“I went to Amsterdam, we went to Turkey, I had girls’ weekends as well,” she added.
Online users rushed to the comments over the controversial hypothesis about the pregnancy
