A rural community in South Africa is stunned after a dead woman appeared to give birth inside of a coffin.
The bizarre “coffin birth” has left some people crying witchcraft after a deceased 33-year-old mother of five‚ Nomveliso Nomasonto Mdoyi‚ of Mthayisi village near Mbizana‚ gave birth.
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Staff at the funeral home in Mbizana discovered the stillbirth the day before Mdoyi’s funeral, 10 days after her death — and say they are left traumatized.
“We were so shocked and frightened that we did not even have time to look at the sex of the baby. I have been in the business for more than 20 years and I have never heard of a dead woman giving birth,” Lindokuhle Funeral parlour owner Fundile Makalana told the Times Live.
Both the stillborn infant and the mother were buried in one big coffin on Saturday.
The deceased woman’s mother‚ Mandzala Mdoyi‚ 76‚ said her daughter died suddenly after becoming short of breath at home. She was nine months pregnant at the time.
“First‚ I was devastated by the untimely death of my daughter and now I got the shock of my life to learn that she has given birth while she had been dead for 10 days. What is that? God please come and intervene‚” the grieving mother said.
A family spokesman said they would consult both medical experts and sangomas (South African traditional healers) to learn more about the postmortem birth.
“We cannot sit down and fold hands as if it is business as normal. We want to know more about this‚” the spokesperson said.
“Coffin births”, also known as postmortem foetal extrusions, are rare but possible during the decomposition of a dead body.
The baby is pushed out by the increasing pressure of “intra-abdominal gases” building up inside the corpse.
Medical experts told the Daily Dispatch newspaper the fetus could also be expelled as a result of “contracting and relaxing muscles during death”.
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