‘Spider Baby’ Born With Four Hands, Four Legs, Fighting For Life [Photo]

The “spider baby” image circulating online has many wondering how something so medically abnormal could occur in a woman who previously didn’t show any abnormalities in her pregnancy.

While details are limited on the family that this happened to — it was reportedly in China, according to the NY Daily News and some Chinese-language news sources — doctors feel they do know what happened to cause the child in the image above to be born with four hands and four legs.

Apparently, she was born with a headless “parasitic twin,” the Daily News notes.

His father, known only as “Mr. Chen,” said that his wife had had five appointments and that doctors did not see any abnormalities that would have led them to believe that the child would be born with eight appendages.

Unfortunately, the so-called “spider baby” isn’t out of the woods yet. She’s reportedly fighting for her life against pneumonia and a congenital heart defect.

Surgeons in the Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, were able to successfully remove the extra limbs, but it remains to be seen whether the girl will be capable of living a normal life, Chinese news agencies report.

“I only cared about my work,” said Mr. Chen in comments to the local news agency. “I just thought of making money instead of taking her to the hospital for a medical checkup.”

The five checkups that she did have were at clinics and not at a hospital, he added.

One commenter on the Daily News site noted that it was “too bad” the child wasn’t born in India, noting that “she would have been treated like a god.”

This comment refers to a previous case reported in November 2014 regarding the so-called “God Baby,” who was born with four arms and four legs.

The boy in India received his nickname because multiple appendages are common for deities in Hindu culture, the Daily Mail notes.

As in the China case, the multiple limbs were the result of an underdeveloped conjoined twin.

“When he first came out we couldn’t believe it,” said an unknown relative in comments to local television sources. “The nurses said he was badly deformed but I could see that this was a sign from God. In fact, this is a miracle, it’s God’s baby. Indian God’s have extra limbs just like this.”

What do you think, readers? Is this and the so-called “spider baby” examples of divine intervention or just medical abnormalities that need to be corrected?