A baby with two heads has been delivered by a 19 year old girl at the General Hospital, Malumfashi, Katsina State. The baby also has a cleft palate and stunted fingers. According to the News Agency of Nigeria, 19-year-old Zainabu Dahiru gave birth to the baby, which also had no eyes, on Sunday. The baby’s father, Malam Dahiru Umar, told NAN on Tuesday that the baby was born through normal delivery. Umar, a 25-year-old petty trader, said the baby was their first and his wife attended regular ante-natal care during pregnancy. He said he cried on sighting the baby and sympathetic hospital workers told him that they could not offer any medical assistance beside the delivery.
He said the workers informed him that his wife was in a stable condition and referred the baby to Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Shika, near, Zaria. Umar appealed to government, wealthy individuals and non-governmental organisations for support. NAN reported that the new born baby and her mother were still at home.
When shown the photograph of the baby, a gynaecologist at the Garki Hospital, Abuja, Dr Kayode Obende, said the condition was called encephacele -a rare type of neural tube defect (NTD) present at birth that affects the brain. The neural tube is a narrow channel that folds and closes during the third and fouth weeks of pregnancy to form the brain and spinal cord.
Encephalocele is described as a sac-like protrusion or projection of the brain and the membranes that cover it through an opening in the skull. Encephalocele happens when the neural tube does not close completely during pregnancy. The result is an opening in the midline of the upper part of the skull, the area between the forehead and nose, or the back of the skull.