New Delhi: As strange as it may sound, an Indonesian woman apparently 'gave birth' to a lizard and is now being threatened by an angry lynch mob that is accusing her of practicing witchcraft.
This midwife probably did not expect to find a baby gecko on the birthing table when she started assisting a mother in labour.
But rather than delivering a healthy newborn baby, she found herself face-to-face with a lizard. Or so she claims.
Yes, a lizard apparently oozed out of the ‘pregnant' woman covered in mucus and blood as she was giving birth.
Debi Nubatois is claimed to have gone into labour during her eighth month of pregnancy at her home in Kupang, with the assistance of midwife Josephine Lydia Hellen Wadu.
Wadu informed Indonesian news site Kompas that rather than the anticipated baby, a lizard coated in mucus and blood slithered out of the birth canal instead.
Since news of the reptilian birth began to spread, Nubatois and her family have been accused of witchcraft, though allegations of overactive imaginations could be closer to the mark.
Bizarre news footage of the lizard being ceremoniously weighed in what appears to be a hospital is also doing the rounds.
Dr Messe Ataupa, Chief Medical Officer of nearby Kupang city says, "It is clearly nonsense to suggest that the woman gave birth to a lizard. There has never been a proven case of a living organism from one species giving birth to a different species, it just doesn't happen.
"We have spoken to locals who confirmed that the woman showed all the symptoms of pregnancy, and it does seem according to the midwife that she appeared to be going into labour. However, we believe it was just a phantom pregnancy or pseudocyesis where there was never a child although the woman would have had many of the symptoms."
Ataupa said that a small percentage of the women who have phantom pregnancies also experience labour.
He further said that there might have been some discharge during "birthing" which could have landed on the lizard leading to the confusion and belief that the woman had given birth to a gecko.
He said: "If there was no baby, it might be possible that she (the midwife) just jumped to the wrong conclusion."
