Baby born with inverted legs abandoned by parents for having rare deformity

Anewborn in India was abandoned by her parents after they found the child was born with her legs inverted below the knee, with feet turned towards the back.

The incident took place on Monday at the Government Civil Hospital of Harda in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The doctors at the facility called it a rare case. The parents were informed about the deformity by the doctors, following which they fled the hospital, local media reported.

Newborns should ideally weigh between 5.9 pounds and 7 pounds. However, this baby weighed only 3.5 pounds, and was admitted to the special newborn care unit of the hospital, where a nurse was assigned to care for her. A doctor told the media such cases occur due to genetics or when there is not enough space in the mother's womb.

Child expert Dr. Sunny Juneja said he has not witnessed such a case in his five-year-long career, and added one in a million children gets affected by such a deformity.

The baby is currently weak and is in isolation under the supervision of doctors. The doctors added that the newborn is out of danger, but they are currently not allowing anyone to meet her as a precautionary measure.

Dr. Pushpavardhan Mandlecha, an orthopedic at Shri Aurobindo Institute of Medical Sciences in the city of Indore, said the baby's knees can be straightened with surgery. However, the final decision can be taken only after the child's health improves.

As the newborn's unidentified parents were nowhere to be found, the hospital management had reported the incident to the police so that they could help trace them, News Track Live reported.

Recently in the state of Punjab, a rare surgery was conducted to remove an extra leg of a 1-year-old boy. The baby was born with a birth defect called tripod deformity. The rare corrective surgery was performed by four doctors at a hospital in Haibowal. "This 'Tripod Deformity' is seemingly due to a parasitic Siamese twin, the body of which degenerated, leaving the leg behind in the other twin, which fused with the back of the baby. The patient had undergone an MRI scan which showed the presence of Femur tibia fibula and the knee joint in the additional leg," Dr. Balbeer Singh of the private hospital said at the time.