This week in India a child was born with four arms, four legs and two faces
A child in India has died after being born with four arms, four legs and two faces.
This week, the baby’s mother, 38-year-old Rama Devi, was rushed to a rural hospital after she went into labour pains.
The hospital staff and villagers were shocked to discover that the child was born with a different body that was not yet fully developed.
This gave the child two pairs of faces, legs and arms.
It appeared that the underdeveloped legs and arms were protruding from the child’s chest.
The child died five hours after birth.
The condition is so rare that doctors have no name for it.
It is unclear how exactly the child died. The baby could not be breastfed or drink milk independently.
When the hospital staff saw the baby’s unusual appearance, they reacted with fear and quickly shifted the baby outside, causing chaos in the hospital. However, Mrs. Devi’s husband, Ramphal, expressed surprise at the birth of their unique child.
Although the birth was uneventful and without complications, it took place in a rural area where women rarely undergo prenatal screening, which could explain why the child’s condition came as a surprise.
The family is believed to have more children.
Although it is unclear whether this exact condition has been observed before, several other extremely rare forms of conjoined twins have been reported in India and surrounding countries.
Last November, a 30-year-old woman in India gave birth to a baby boy with four hands and four legs.
In Indonesia, twins were born joined at the pelvis, giving them three legs, four arms and one penis. They were called ‘spider twins’.
And two out of every million children worldwide are born with diprosopus, a rare form of conjoined twins in which one face is partially or completely duplicated. In these cases, the faces and brains are connected by only one brainstem.
The baby, who died five hours after birth, was unable to breastfeed properly or drink milk independently, although the delivery itself was normal.
In general, conjoined twins account for one in every 50,000 to 200,000 live births. They occur when one fertilized egg splits and develops into two individuals.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the layers that split to form identical twins develop into specific organs and structures about eight to 12 days after conception.
It is suspected that the process ends prematurely and conjoined twins are created.
Another theory, however, holds that two separate embryos fuse early in development.