India: Baby born with a third arm

The images are astonishing. In India, a baby was recently born with three arms, an extremely rare phenomenon in the history of medicine. As reported by the Daily Mail, the infant, who was born in a hospital in Rajasthan, had a third limb protruding from its back. It was smaller than the others and had a small, palm-shaped hand at its end. According to doctors, this is a case of polymelia, a congenital malformation characterized by the presence of one or more extra limbs.

Specifically, during development, around the fourth or fifth week of pregnancy, two pairs of buds appear on the surface of an embryo that develop into limbs. However, sometimes these can be disrupted, causing other buds to form and subsequently develop into limbs. According to doctors, this can occur later in the developmental process. Therefore, the extra limbs are less developed than the others .

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