Mum Terminates Pregnancy After Learning Her Unborn Baby Has Mermaid Syndrome

A 23-year-old mother has terminated her pregnancy after discovering that the baby she was carrying has a condition known as “mermaid syndrome”.

Wu was six months pregnant when she was examined by doctors in Yichang City, in Central China’s Hubei Province and her scans showed that her unborn child did not have two legs, but instead had a tail-like growth, including a stunted liver, and the baby also lacked a bladder, reports said.

Doctors told Wu that the foetus was suffering from a condition known as sirenomelia, or ‘Mermaid Syndrome’, a rare congenital deformity in which the legs are fused together, giving them the appearance of a mermaid’s tail.

Wu decided to terminate the pregnancy after specialists estimated that the baby would only be able to survive for several hours after birth.

The causes of Mermaid Syndrome are still a medical mystery, and it is said to occur only once in every 100,000 pregnancies.

One of the world’s most well-documented cases of sirenomelia was that of Shiloh Pepin, who was dubbed ‘Mermaid Girl’. Despite undergoing 150 operations during her lifetime, she passed away in 2009 at the age of 10.

Source: Dailymail.co.uk and Kidspot.com.au