A Chinese woman will undergo surgery today to remove 23 needles thought to have been put under her skin by her grandparents in an apparent attempt to kill her when she was a child.

The sewing needles had been discovered by X-ray after Luo Cuifen, 29, who comes from a poor farming community, went to doctors complaining of blood in her urine.

Doctors believe Luo’s grandparents may have inserted the needles long ago, hoping she would die and her parents might have a boy in her place.

China limits most families to just one child, although rural Chinese may be allowed to have a second if their first is a girl, subject to the payment of fines.

Many of the needles worked their way into Luo’s vital organs including her lungs, liver, bladder and kidneys, making their removal difficult, said Qu Rui, a spokesman for the Richland International Hospital in Yunnan province’s capital, Kunming.

Other needles were in her head, neck, and shoulder, some of which are dangerously close to major arteries. There is also one in her brain that has broken into three pieces, the Beijing Morning Post reported.

He said six of the 23 needles, all of them in Luo’s abdomen, would be removed today in the first of several expected operations, but added that the surgery “carries a definite degree of risk.”

The operation will involve 23 doctors in fields ranging from women’s medicine to neurology and including bone specialists and cardiologists, the news release said.

Doctors from Canada and the United States will join those from China in one of the operations.

In many parts of China, baby boys are still heavily favoured over girls because they are bound by tradition to support their parents in their old age, and because they carry on the family name.

Infanticide and abortions of female fetuses have created a skewed ratio between the genders, with 119 boys reported born for every 100 girls, according to official figures. By comparison, the ratio in industrialized countries is 107 to 104 boys for every 100 girls.

It wasn’t clear whether further investigations were planned, with media reports saying Luo’s grandparents had already died.

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