Mother aborts 'mermaid' child after she found out the foetus was growing a TAIL instead of legs

A young mother has decided to terminate her pregnancy after finding out she was carrying a mermaid-like foetus in her womb. The mum, 23-year-old Wu, was six months pregnant when she was examined by doctors in Yichang City, in Central China's Hubei Province.  Wu's scans showed that her unborn child did not have two legs, but instead had a 'tail' like growth.

The foetus also did not have a bladder and had a stunted liver, reports said.

Doctors at the hospital 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.
Despite carrying the foetus for half a year, Wu decided to terminate her pregnancy after specialists estimated that the baby would only be able to survive for a few 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.

Shiloh Pepin, an American dubbed 'Mermaid Girl', suffered one of the world's most well-documented cases of sirenomelia.

Despite undergoing 150 operations during her relatively short lifetime, she still passed away in 2009 at the age of 10. 

Daily Mail