Pregnant With 9 Babies: Mexican Woman's Nonuplets Claim Is False

Reports claiming that a Mexican woman was pregnant with nine babies turned out to be false, a spokesman from a Mexican newspaper said on Friday.

On Thursday, Mexico's main broadcaster Televisa and a top daily newspaper carried the interview of Karla Vanessa Perez who was reportedly pregnant with nonuplets - six girls and three boys - and due to give birth on May 20.

It's very early to think of names for the babies, she told the broadcaster. First I hope that everything goes well.

Perez, living in Coahuila along the Texas border, was being treated at a hospital in the state capital Saltillo, the broadcaster reported.

According to a spokesman for the health ministry of Coahuila, Perez gave welfare officials alleged evidence of her multiple pregnancy, following which authorities offered assistance to the 32-year-old would-be-mom.

Earlier reports claimed that Perez had conceived the babies after receiving fertility treatment, but when doctors carried out some tests they found out that she was not even pregnant. The newspaper spokesman also said that it was unclear why the woman made those claims.

The news was soon picked up by other news channels and newspapers around the world Thursday night. But on Friday, a local newspaper challenged Perez's claim of expecting 9 babies.

According to a reporter from El Diario de Coahuila newspaper, Perez lied to the welfare officials about receiving fertility treatments. The reporter also spoke with Perez's mother who said that her daughter was not pregnant at all.

Francisca Castañeda, Perez's mother, also said that her daughter has three children, aged 15, 12 and 4. After the third child Perez had undergone an operation to prevent her from getting pregnant again, Castañeda said.

She made it up, a newspaper official said. And, because the number of babies would break the world record, everyone just ran with it.

Earlier in 1971 and 1999 there have been two cases of nonuplets deliveries, but in both cases none of the babies survived for more than six days.

However, the record for the highest multiple births was set by a controversial American woman Nadya Suleman who gave birth to eight children - six boys and two girls- in January 2009.