A baby has been delivered with a rare defect at Suntreso Gov't Hospital in Kumasi, Ghana.
Report: Ibrahim Sambo from Ghana; >>>> A mermaid-like baby has been delivered at the Suntreso Government Hospital in Kumasi,
The child with a rare defect has only one leg joining the torso from the waist down to the two feet - also conjoined at the heels to look like a caudal fin.
The baby has no genitals.
Meanwhile, reports indicate it seems healthy at birth.
Officials at the hospital have refused to comment officially on the issue.
On October 11, 2011, Graphiconline reported on a similar incident of a baby born at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) also in Kumasi with features like an aquatic creature.
Doctors at the hospital then described it as a congenital deformity.
Nurses at the hospital told Graphiconline's Enoch Darfah Frimpong that the parents of the baby abandoned it soon after it was born and said they didn't want to have anything to do with it.
The legs of that baby was joined in the shape of the caudal (tail) peduncle of a fish. The head appeared like that of a fish, with mouth, lower and upper jaws, nostrils and eyes all popping out in the shape of the aquatic creature.
That baby which was born with the congenital deformity died weeks later.
Baby Born With Congenital Deformity at KATH
October 11, 2011. DOCTORS at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) are working to save the life of a baby born at the hospital last Friday with abnormal features.
The legs of the baby are joined in the shape of the caudal (tail) peduncle of a fish.The head also appears like that of a fish, with the mouth, lower and upper jaws, nostrils and eyes all popping out in the shape of the aquatic creature.
Known as congenital deformity, this health defect is life-threatening and many of such babies normally die in a matter of days.But this baby, whose mother has been left traumatised after she saw the child she had delivered, is still alive.
The specialist in charge of the Maternal and Babies Unit (MBU) of KATH, Dr Gyikua Plange-Rhule, told the Daily Graphic yesterday that children born with such deformities usually had no kidneys and other human organs like liver.
"But we have to do an ultra-sound scan to establish whether the baby has such organs.Many of them will die in a few days, but others can survive to become adults. So we all have to wait to see what will happen," she said.
Congenital deformity is a large group of disorders arising during the development of pregnancy that cause abnormality to the baby at birth.
It can be very mild or severe, but most often the defects lead to death.
Dr Plange-Rhule said it was the first time a woman had given birth to a child of such nature at the hospital.
She refused to disclose the name and even the age of the mother, insisting it could aggravate her already unpleasant situation.
Explaining the causes of congenital deformities, she said while they could be caused by genetic factors, others were as a result of poor maternal diet and the use of certain drugs during pregnancy.
Dr Plange-Rhule cautioned pregnant women against the use of alcohol and smoking.
Pregnant women who consume excessive amounts of alcohol during the early stages of pregnancy risk having babies with fatal alcohol syndrome.
Children with this disorder may have various defects in growth, facial appearance and mental ability.
Smoking during pregnancy increases the likelihood that the baby will have lower-than-normal weight at birth, increasing the risk
