A baby astonished doctors in India when it was born with a rare condition known as ‘Mermaid syndrome.’
Tragically the newborn, whose legs had fused together to resemble the mythical creature, only lived for about ten minutes.
The 22-year-old mother, from Sahranpur, in Uttar Pradesh, northern India, had the baby, on Friday morning.
Dr Vandana Arya, 35, a gynaecologist at the hospital who delivered the baby, said: ‘I have never seen a case like this before.
We have seen congenital disorders amongst children born with deformities, but this was an extremely rare case.
‘The baby was born in a fish-like body, and had its hands spread like fins, which made this case even more unique.
‘The upper body of the baby was absolutely functional but the lower body was not developed.’
A large group of people gathered at at Sahi Ram Hospital for a glimpse of the remarkable newborn.
Dr Arya said the condition meant it was impossible to determine the gender of the baby.
Sirenomelia, also known as ‘Mermaid syndrome’ is a life-threatening illness, marked by the rotation and fusion of a sufferer’s legs.
The rare congenital deformity causes what looks like a single limb, resembling a fish tail, in the womb.
For centuries mermaids have occupied the world of fantasy and fairy tale with this illustration published in Hans Christian Andersen’s Fairy Tales
Medical historian Lindsey Fitzharris, who has a PhD from Oxford University, previously told MailOnline the condition occurs from a failure of the normal vascular supply, when the umbilical cord fails to form two arteries.
As a result there is not sufficient blood supply reaching the foetus, she said.
The single artery ‘steals’ the blood and nutrition from the lower body, diverting it back up into the placenta.
Suffering malnutrition, the foetus fails to develop two separate limbs.
Another notable survivor of the rare disorder is a Peruvian girl, nicknamed the Little Mermaid.
In 2006 a team of eight specialists successfully carried out a second operation on the then two-year-old Milagros Cerron.
The youngster, whose first name means ‘miracles’ in Spanish, was born with the rare congenital disorder.
Her legs were fused from groin to ankles and her feet splayed, in the characteristic form of sirenomelia.
Most of Milagros’s internal organs, including her heart and lungs, were in perfect condition.
Milagros Cerron was dubbed ‘Little Mermaid’ because of her rare birth defect but underwent successful surgery to separate her legs
But she was born with serious internal defects, including a deformed left kidney and a very small right kidney located very low in her body.
Her digestive, urinary tracts and genitals also shared a single tube.
In June 2005 doctors successfully performed the first in a series of risky operations to separate Milagros’s lower legs, to above her knees.
The second operation was carried out to separate the remaining fused tissue, from her knees to groin.
Surgeon Luis Rubio, who led the specialists, said after the second surgery: ‘There were no problems, no complications from anaesthesia or from haemorraghing. ‘
He said Milagros had developed the ability to stand alone without help and take small assisted steps.
In 2012 the then seven-year-old required a kidney transplant, part of surgery to reconstruct her urinary tract.
Rubio said at the time that Tiffany Yorks, was the only other person known to have undergone successful surgery to correct the rare congenital defect.