A young mother in India has given birth to a “mermaid baby” with an unidentified sex due to its underdeveloped pelvis and legs that were fused together.
Doctors identified the baby’s condition as sirenomelia – also known as mermaid syndrome - and it tragically died just four hours later.
Mother Muskura Bibi hadn’t been able to afford ultrasound scans prior to the birth and therefore was unaware of her baby’s condition.
Bibi gave birth on Wednesday morning at Chittaranjan Seva Sadan Hospital in Kolkata, located in eastern India, reports Mail Online.
According to Dr Sudip Saha, an obstetrics and gynaecology specialist at the hospital, Bibi and her husband lacked the funds for sufficient pregnancy care which, in rare cases, can lead to this condition.
He explained that the baby had a fully formed upper body, however, its lower part was entirely dysfunctional due to severe congenital abnormalities.
It’s the second documented case of sirenomelia in India, with a woman from Uttar Pradaesh giving birth to a “mermaid baby” in 2016.
The child survived for just 10 minutes.
Sirenomelia, or mermaid syndrome, is a rare congenital foetal anomaly that is thought to affect one in every 100,000 babies.
Sufferers will typically have no visibly identifiable genitalia and they are also likely to have underdeveloped organs that leads to their death.
A 2015 study published in the Journal of Natural Science, Biology and Medicine described sirenomelia as “incompatible with life”, given that there are no reported survivors to date.
While the exact cause remains unknown, the same study identified a strong link between the condition and maternal diabetes.
Reuse content