THE proud father of a miracle baby born in Darwin has described his wife's pregnancy as a time bomb.
Durga Thangarajah is the only child in Australia -- and possibly the world -- to survive a full-term ovarian pregnancy.
But the healthy 2.8kg bundle was yesterday oblivious to all the fuss caused by her remarkable entry into the world at 8.47am Thursday.
"This form of pregnancy is rare enough, but to have it full-term is unheard of," said obstetrician Andrew Miller, from Darwin Private Hospital.
"I have never come across it in any hospital . . .
"It truly is a miracle she got a living baby out of it."
Ovarian pregnancies are the rarest form of ectopic pregnancies and occur when the egg fails to travel down the fallopian tube and into the uterus.
Instead, the fetus fertilises inside the ovary itself.
Midwife Dee Keogh said the operating room was astonished when 34-year-old Meera Thangarajah was cut open to deliver her second child during a routine caesarean section at 38 weeks.
"We could see the baby straight away," she said.
"Normally the baby is inside the uterus (but) we could see the baby clearly, its hair, all its features. I think everybody just thought wow -- she is one lucky lady."
Ovarian pregnancies affect one in every 40,000 pregnancies and are a life-threatening complication. Such pregnancies are usually terminated before 10 weeks.
Ms Keogh said most expectant mothers suffering from the condition experienced pain or bleeding.
Ravi Thangarajah, 40, was all smiles as he spoke about his new daughter Durga, which means goddess in Hindu.
"The doctor and the paediatrician came in and told me it was like a miracle baby -- you're one of the luckiest men in the world at the moment," he said.
"When you look at all the odds against us . . . I work for Sportingbet Australia and people reckon it's all about the odds. I tell you we beat all the odds!"
Mr Thangarajah said he had to "go to Google" to find out about the condition.
"It's slowly sinking in for me what happened. They keep telling me how risky it was for the mother. We didn't know it was this time bomb," he said. "It could have been a disaster." AAP
Doctors performing a Caesarian delivery in a Darwin, Australia hospital were stunned to discover a rare ovarian ectopic pregnancy. According to Robin Cahill, general manager of the Darwin Private Hospital, ovarian pregnancies occur in only 1 in every 40,000 fertilisations.

Darwin Private Hospital
An ectopic pregnancy occurs when a fertilised egg implants in a woman's body in a location other than the uterus. The most common place for an ectopic pregnancy to occur is the Fallopian tubes, accounting for roughly 95% of all ectopic pregnancies. Ectopic pregnancies are generally discovered early, especially as they tend to cause bleeding in the mother, and tend to miscarry or be terminated due to the health risks they pose.

The mother, Meera Thangarajah, however, suffered no complications during her pregnancy, and an ultrasound performed mid-way through the pregnancy did not discover the complication. The hospital's obstetrician Andrew Miller says that having an ovarian pregnancy survive to full-term is "unheard of". The British Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists agrees, with a representative saying the odds of a successful ovarian pregnancy are "no more than one in a million", taking into account both the difficulty of bringing such a pregnancy to term and the tendency for the pregnancy to be terminated when it is discovered early.

The baby, a girl, was named Durga, a Hindu name meaning "goddess", and weighed 6 pounds 3 ounces (2.8 kg). The father, Ravi Thangarajah, says that doctors told him he was "one of the luckiest men in the world".