Six-legged Baby Boy Born in Pakistan Fighting for Life

Doctors were frantically trying to save the life of a baby boy who was born with six legs.

Doctors at the National Institute of Child Health (NICH) in Karachi are fighting to save the baby, who was born with four extra limbs some experts have suggested were the stunted remains of a twin, reported The Express Tribune.

"Operating on such a baby is not an easy task as proper assessments need to be done first. We need to figure out whether the baby has his twin's limbs or his own," NICH director Prof Jamal Raza said.

"We also need to consider how much the internal organs have developed as the latter could complicate matters and decrease the baby's chances of surviving."

A team of five surgeons was carrying out initial assessments before operating.

Raza said that the baby had a rare genetic condition which occurs in one of every 100,000 patients. The survival rate is low.

The baby's parents are from Sukkur, a Pakistani city in southeastern Sindh province. Imran Shaikh, the father, is an X-ray technician in a clinic who has asked for financial assistance from the government to pay for his child's treatment. The baby is the first child of Shaikh and his wife, Afshan, 27. They have been married for five years.

"I want the doctors to save my son's life. I am a poor man and have already spent my savings on the illness of my wife who delivered the child after a caesarean section on 12 April at the Civil Hospital Sukkur," Sheikh told the Dawn newspaper.

"I am desperately looking to the government for the treatment of my child and my other financial needs."

If their son survives, the couple will call him Umar Farooq.