Mexican woman with nine babies a fraud, say doctors

London, May 1 (IANS) A 32-year-old Mexican woman, who said she was pregnant with nine babies, was not pregnant at all and "just obese". She could not be expecting because her fallopian tubes were removed four years ago, Mexican health officials have said.

Karla Vanessa Perez was said to be expecting six girls and three boys. The babies were conceived using fertility treatment and were due May 20, the Daily Mail reported earlier, citing Mexico's main broadcaster Televisa.

However, health officials said she was "simply clinically obese".

They revealed it would be impossible for Perez to be carrying nonuplets as her fallopian tubes were removed in 2008.

The woman does have three children with her car mechanic husband, They are aged four, 12 and 15.

"Everything is a crude joke, hatched by a person with an evident and urgent need to say, 'Here I am! Come and see me! I exist!'," a doctor, Jose Salvador Gallegos Mata, told the El Diario de Coahuila newspaper.

"Humanly and scientifically a pregnancy of nine would only be possible through IVF. But never through natural methods, and even less so when a woman who has undergone a salpingectomy (the surgical removal of the Fallopian tubes) she had following the birth of her youngest child," he said.

In 2009, a 36-year-old woman in California gave birth to octuplets, sparking worldwide media attention. Nadya Suleman -- a mother of 14 -- was dubbed "Octomum".

The highest recorded number of children born to one mother in the world, according to Guinness is 69. In 27 pregnancies, the Russian woman gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets in the 17th century.