S.African woman's claim of giving birth to 10 babies not true, she was not even pregnant
A South African woman giving birth to 10 babies has been ruling the internet lately. It was said that she might have broken the Guinness World Record for most children delivered at a single birth to survive. However, the investigation was still going on. Now, it has been reported that the claims were not true. Infact, she was not even pregnant in the past months, according to the Gauteng provincial government's statement.
According to local media, Gosiame Sithole, 37, claimed that she gave birth to 10 babies on June 7 at a local hospital in Gauteng province, reports Xinhua news agency. "The Gauteng provincial government conducted a thorough check with all hospitals in the province to establish the veracity or otherwise of reports," the statement issued on Wednesday said.
Sithole's husband had allegedly told Pretoria News earlier that the doctors had detected eight babies during the scans but the woman delivered ten.
"None of the hospitals in the province, public and private, had any records of such birth at their facilities." Sithole was taken to hospital on June 18 where several examinations were conducted. "It has now been established by medical practitioners that Sithole did not give birth to any babies in recent times.
"It is also been established that she was not pregnant in recent times," Gauteng Provincial government spokesperson Thabo Masebe was quoted as saying in the statement. He said the government will continue providing medical, psychological and social support to the woman.
On a related note, Nadya Suleman currently holds the Guinness World Records for delivering most children at a single birth to survive. She gave birth to six boys and two girls in California, US, in 2009. The Guinness World Records website states, "The Suleman octuplets are only the second full set of octuplets to be born alive in the United States and, one week after their birth, surpassed the previous worldwide survival rate for a complete set of octuplets set by the Chukwu octuplets in 1998."
(With IANS inputs)
