A 23-year-old woman in Kolkata gave birth to a baby with its legs fused together, giving it an appearance of a mermaid.
The newborn was India’s second ever mermaid baby, a syndrome which is believed to affect one in every 60,000 to 100,000 births.
Muskura Bibi, 23, gave birth to a baby who was born with a rare condition known as sirenomelia or ‘mermaid syndrome’ at the government-run Chittaranjan Deva Sadan Hospital in Kolkata.
Sadly, the baby died four hours after birth. Due to the undeveloped lower half of the child, the doctors were unable to identify its gender.
Unfortunately, the mother didn’t know about the child’s condition beforehand as she couldn’t get the ultrasound sonography done due to lack of finances. The parents of the deceased child, both of whom work as labourers, were not able to seek proper medication during Muskura Bibi’s pregnancy.
Dr Sudip Saha, a child specialist at the hospital, told the Daily Mail:
Lack of proper nutrition and improper blood circulation to the baby from the mother can create this kind of abnormality.