Alena Avdeeva, 26, mother of three, pictured with her two youngest children. Picture: Telefakt

Alena Avdeeva, 26, from Chelyabinsk region, has medical documentation from doctors showing she was pregnant with twins. In early January, nine months pregnant, she went to City Hospital Number 2 in Miass, where she had undertaken her first ultrasound.

Doctors told her that the fetal heart beat faint, so she need to go through the urgent caesarean section, according to reports. After the operation, she was shocked to be informed that it was a false pregnancy, and a cyst had been removed instead.

Doctor in Karabash saw her four times, and she was given blood and urine tests, none of which revealed there was anything amiss. Pictures: Odnoklassniki

Doctors in her home town Karabash were surprised when she returned without children. It then emerged that the medical records relating to her ultrasound had disappeared.

The chief doctor of Karabash hospital - where she had been treated during her 'pregnancy' filed a complaint with the police, demanding checks into this 'strange case'.

Next there were accusations that the woman, a mother of three, had forged the results of the ultrasound at the hospital in Miass. 'She did this to keep her husband in the family,' said one source.

'In reality the woman was diagnosed with a cyst in Miass. With this diagnosis she then came to the hospital in Karabash.' Picture: Telefakt

Using this medical paper, she was treated by a gynaecologist in Karabash hospital. This doctor saw her four times, and she was given blood and urine tests, none of which revealed there was anything amiss. 'She went through only general clinical tests, and refused others,' said a source.

Investigators are continuing to seek the truth on a case they describe as 'murky', as are the Ministry of Health.

'There was no pregnancy,' said a source. 'In reality the woman was diagnosed with a cyst in Miass. With this diagnosis she then came to the hospital in Karabash. Why the doctors here recorded her as pregnant only on the basis of false ultrasonography will be understood by the Health Ministry.'