Girl in India born with two faces.

In the rural Nagar district of Uttar Pradesh, 50km north east of New Delhi, a woman gave birth to a baby girl with two faces and four eyes. - mystertopia

The parents of a baby girl born with two faces say that they have no plans to seek treatment or surgery for their daughter ... "The doctor said everything is normal when she was born. So where's the need to get medical help?" said the child's father, Vinod Kumar, 24.

"She's fed through one mouth and sucks her thumb with the other. We use whichever mouth is free to feed her," Mr Kumar said, adding she is eating and breathing normally.

WARNING: Some people will find the following photos of a two faced baby disturbing.

The three-week-old baby from Saini village in Uttar Pradesh state, 30 miles north-east of the capital New Delhi, is being hailed as a "miracle" child.

Hundreds of locals are flocking to seek her "blessing" and, in keeping with Indian traditional, showering her parents with money.

"At first I was a little afraid," said Mr Kumar of his first child. "But then I accepted whatever God gives."

To the largely illiterate villagers from the agricultural community the little girl is a reincarnation of Lord Ganesh, the half person and half elephant, and one of the most worshipped deities in the Hindu pantheon.

He is a highly benevolent god revered as the remover of obstacles and creating new beginnings.

"It's a gift from God. Some people say she is like a goddess," schoolmaster Harsharan Singh gushed.

Little, however, is known of the baby's physical condition as her parents are not permitting doctors to examine her.  "They are not aware enough that they should come in for treatment," Dr M Ashmosd, who delivered the baby at the local government hospital, said. "I have told them that we are ready to do the CT scan on her for free. But they have ignored me."


Another local doctor, Bridal Nagar, said she was not an "abnormal baby" but just one with two faces living a normal life, but who might face problems later on.  "And if she dies it's as God wishes," he added. - 4to40

She was doing well one month after birth.

I would like to see a brain scan. Does this one girl have two connected brains? Might she be capable of some things the rest of us aren't?

Pollution (read about the Bhopal accident) and certain drugs can cause these birth defects. This is from my Birth Defects of the Human Head article posted a few years ago:

ABORTION DRUG LINKED WITH BIRTH DEFECTS

A minor epidemic of birth defects is occurring in developing countries, where poorer women are turning to an ulcer drug called misoprostol to try to end their pregnancy because abortion is banned or restricted, a report says. Misoprostol is being used to carry out clandestine abortions in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Nigeria, South Africa and the Philippines... Misoprostol is very cheap, being available for as little as 35 US cents, and can often be bought over the counter, making it "the poor person's method" of abortion, it adds.

(This drug is also available in the USA, as seen here.)