BAREILLY: A 22-year-old woman in

on Saturday gave birth to a mermaid baby with its legs joined together.

According to doctors, the baby was very weak and died within an hour after birth, even before doctors could ascertain whether the baby was a boy or a girl.

Doctors said, in medical term, such condition is called ‘

’, a rare condition that causes deformity. A similar case was reported from Maharashtra in May 2018, where the baby died minutes after the birth.

Mohammed Khalil, 28, a labourer and resident of

, admitted his wife

health for the delivery of their first child on Saturday morning. Two hours later, Tabassum gave birth to the child through a normal delivery, but the abnormal state of the baby came as a shock to staff nurses Anandita Kumari and Afsaar Farukh, who have never seen a baby with fused legs.

The nurses immediately informed Khalil and his mother Reshma about the child’s condition and also reported the matter to CHC in-charge Dr Subhash Verma. Dr Verma immediately examined the baby and advised the kin to take the baby to the district hospital in Lakhimpur city as “such babies need to be kept in critical care ward”. However, the baby died before Khalil and his wife could take any decision.