Born in the Shahabad Community Health Center in Uttar Pradesh, India, on July 2, the baby weighed in at 6.5 lbs, and appears to have an extra pair of both arms and legs growing out of its torso.
The newborn has been celebrated as a “miracle of nature” as news of the unique birth spread across the local area, according to The Independent. Some have even suggested that the infant may be a reincarnation of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, who is depicted as having multiple limbs, and is the goddess of wealth, fortune, power, beauty, fertility and prosperity.
The baby is thought to have a condition called polymelia, which is an incredibly rare birth defect causing the baby to be born with too many limbs. There are various forms of polymelia, classified depending on where the extra limbs are growing from: Cephalomelia, Pyromelia, Thoracomelia and Notomelia are the four observed types, with the limbs growing from the head, pelvis, thorax or backbone, respectively. While very uncommon in humans, polymelia is seen at slightly higher rates in animals, having been observed in cows, buffalo, chickens, frogs and fruit flies.
Polymelia is often caused by a genetic defect in the growing fetus, leading to abnormal cell division and growth. Occasionally, one of a pair of conjoined twins may be absorbed into the other, leaving some of its limbs attached to the remaining fetus. External factors may also play into congenital defects like polymelia. For example, the drug thalidomide that was distributed as a morning sickness treatment in the 1950s caused, it is estimated, over 10,000 babies to be born malformed with too few or undeveloped limbs, with around half dying within months of being born.
Earlier in 2022, another baby was born with polymelia in eastern India, also with four arms and four legs, and had some of its organs exposed outside of its body.
According to research published in the Indian Journal of Human Genetics in 2013, Indian fetuses were at increased risk of birth defects due to a variety of factors including higher maternal age, lack of antenatal care (22.8 percent of Indian pregnancies did not receive any antenatal care), maternal nutritional status and high numbers of consanguineous marriages in the population. Consanguineous marriages occur at rates that vary between 1 percent and 4 percent in northern India, to as high as 40 to 50 percent in the south, according to the study.
