A 23-year-old woman from the Mala village of Madhya Pradesh's Vidisha district gave birth to a male baby with two heads and three hands at a government hospital in Bhopal on Saturday.

The doctors reportedly initially informed the woman after sonography that she was going to give birth to twins, but were surprised when she delivered a baby with one body and two heads. The baby is currently under special observation at the special newborn care units (SNCU) of the hospital. "It was a critical operation as we didn't expect a conjoint baby. This is the first child of the woman, who was married one and a half years ago. After the operation, the family was shocked so we didn't tell the mother about the conjoint baby," one of the doctors reportedly informed a news agency.

Both the mother and the child are healthy at the moment but there is apparently very little chance of survival for children of such type. The condition happens only when the fetus in the womb of the woman does not develop properly.