Doctors in China have saved the life of a woman who had 26 pins and needles inserted into her body when she was a child in an apparent attempt to change her sex to a boy.
The objects were discovered when the 29-year-old woman, named in local papers as Luo Cuifen, went to hospital for a check-up after she started experiencing blood in her urine.
They had penetrated vital organs such as the lungs, kidney and liver, while a needle in her brain had broken into three pieces.
Others in her chest were lodged near major arteries.
The woman believes they were inserted into her as a child by her grandparents, who were disappointed she was not a boy.
They are now dead, but if true, it would be another example of the effects of the heavy preference for boys over girls in many parts of Asia.
Since the one-child policy came into force, around the time of Miss Luo's birth, many girl children have been aborted, abandoned, or killed after birth – in some cases by grandparents.
Miss Luo, who comes from a rural area in Yunnan, one of China's poorer provinces, told doctors she had two needles removed when she was a child but had had no health problems until she gave birth.