Extremely rare! Baby girl born with tail in Mexico

In a rare one in a million condition, a baby girl in Mexico has been born with a 2-inch-long tail.

Reportedly, the girl was born by a C-section at a hospital in Nuevo Leon. The parents were healthy and in their late 20s.

The tail is described as a “soft” 5.7-centimetre-long back end “covered in skin and fine hair.” It had a “pointy” tip and varied from 3mm and 5mm in diameter, narrowing towards the bottom.

Notably, the rare phenomenon has been recorded less than 200 times. However, this was the first such case ever recorded in Mexico, said Dr Josue Rueda who led the team of doctors that performed the surgery.

There was no complications during pregnancy and the baby was born full-term, reports timesnownews.

Apart from the tail sticking out at the end of her tailbone with its base slightly to the left, the girl was born healthy.

According to the doctors, the structure was soft, covered in skin, and fine hair. They also said that the tail could be passively moved with no pain, but showed no spontaneous movement. However, the “baby cried when the structure was pinched with a needle.”

When the infant was two months old, the tail was removed through a minor operation and the girl got discharged on the same day with no complications.

As per the analysis, it was a “true tail” containing muscle, blood vessels and nerves but no bones — resembling those in animals. It was thought to have emerged from the embryonic tail that all babies develop in the womb. But, in normal cases, it is usually reabsorbed back into the body to form the tailbone.

“True tails” are “extremely infrequent”, with just 195 cases identified by 2017, with the longest being 20 centimeters (7.9 inches), claimed researchers.

Although, doctors don’t know the causes, the case study published in the Journal of Paediatric Surgery Case reports that these cases are mostly found in boys and one in 17 babies with tails also suffer brain or skull growth disorders.