TWO-HEADED BABY BORN IN TEMBILAHAN

Tembilahan, Riau, July 25 (ANTARA) - Medical workers at a hospital here are taking care of a male baby who was born on Thursday with two heads on a single, undivided body.

The director of Tembilahan's Puri Husada Hospital, Dr Rasul Alim M, said the baby was actually a Siamese twin who, however, could medically speaking not be separated.

The new-born who had yet to be given a name was in good health. It had two heads, a body with two arms, two legs, one pair of kidneys, one pair of lungs, one anus but two hearts.

Measuring 43 cm in length, it weighed in at 3,200 grams moments after birth.

"This is the very first Siamese twin birth that has ever happened in Indragiri Hilir district," Alim said about the baby of Badrun (33) and Nurhayati (23) from Belantararaya village who was delivered by caesarean section on Thursday night.

The hospital was on Friday packed with local people who had heard about the birth of the "strange" baby and wanted to see it.

Alim said the only organic abnormality in the baby was that its left heart was smaller than its right one.

"The baby is actually a Siamese twin with an abnormality and in medical terms impossible to separate, but we will take care of him in the best way we can," he said.