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Tunisian Woman 'Pregnant' With 12 Babies: Fraud

by candice.tsuei | August 19, 2009 at 09:42 am

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Only a few days after the 34-year-old Tunisian woman claimed to be pregnant with a record-breaking 12 babies, the claim has been exposed as fraud.

The woman, known only as AF, was investigated by the country's health ministry and was diagnosed to have "psychological problems and is unlikely even to be pregnant."

A spokesman in Tunis, the capital, added: "Our staff interviewed her at length, but even her pregnancy appears to be in her imagination. She's claiming to be nine months pregnant with six boys and six girls, but there's absolute nothing about her appearance which indicates this. The woman has refused point blank to undergo a medical examination. Now we can't even contact her. She's gone into hiding.'

The woman, an Arabic language teacher, and his husband, known as Marwan, announced the faux pregnancy. She said that she had turned to IVF after suffering two miscarriages and called her pregnancy an "absolute miracle."

While experts confirmed the extraordinary pregnancy was possible, they said it carried "colossal" risks. "Anything more than five babies becomes a very high-risk pregnancy. The rates of premature labor for multiples are astronomical."

If the pregnancy were real, she would have broken the record set earlier this year by an American woman, Nadya Suleman, who gave birth to eight healthy babies and caused a wave of media sensation.

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