Doctors in Kolkata, India were shocked after they delivered a 23-year-old mother of a “Mermaid baby” but lost it after four hours.
It was gathered that doctors found it difficult to discover the child’s gender because it was born with fused legs.
The baby’s condition is described as the “Mermaid Syndrome” or Sirenomelia.
Sirenomelia had occurred in India only twice, this child’s being the second but the fifth in the world.
The mother, identified as Muskura Bibi, gave birth to this child naturally on Wednesday at the government-run Chittaranjan Deva Sadan Hospital in Kolkata, India.
It was gathered that the baby was Bibi’s first attempt at motherhood. She only found out about the baby’s condition after it was born.
A child specialist, Dr Sudip Saha said:
“The baby had a normal formation in upper part of the body but below the waist, its legs were fused together.”
Saha explained that the lower part was not fully developed before its birth because the parent of the child did not have proper medication and nutrition during pregnancy due to lack of funds.
She added that lack of nutrition and improper blood circulation from the mother to the baby can create such abnormalities in foetuses who do not survive.
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