Young family from Moscow becomes parents to androgynous child

The shocked doctors did not know how to explain the horrible news to the parents

Newly-fledged parents did not even think that they would have to experience such horror. The woman did not have any problems with her pregnancy, the childbirth ended without any complications either. However, the doctors were shocked to see the baby; they did not even know how to tell the parents about the misfortune. When the latter learned the truth about their firstling, they grew several years older in one day.

The young family from the Moscow region became parents to an androgyne baby: they had a girl with a male reproductive organ. The young man was eagerly waiting for the news outside the labor ward, although the doctors did not know what to tell the newly-made father. When Alexander Smirnov (aged 25) realized what happened, he suffered a nervous breakdown. It took the young man three days to come to his senses and visit his grieving wife at the hospital and see the baby, the sex of which embarrassed the medics.

When the mother and her baby were discharged from the maternity hospital, they were sent to a local children's hospital, the department for infants' pathologies. Specialists concluded a month later that the baby had internal women's and external male genitalia. The girl will be able to have children in the future, although a complicated plastic surgery and lifetime treatment will be required for it. Parents gave their child a girl's name – Nastya – with a big hope for the positive outcome of the problem.

”The doctors told me that me and my wife, Tatiana, do not match each other genetically, - Alexander Smirnov said. -  My heart and mind refuse to realize that. I was happy when I met Tatiana and our relationship developed. She became the only one for me that I will never break up with her,” said he.

”The doctors told us that Alexander would have normal and healthy children with another woman, and so would I, if I meet a new man,” Alexander's wife, Tatiana said.

The unfortunate family couple may have a normal child in the future, although chances are not high. For the time being, Alexander and Tatiana take care of their androgyne baby, giving it hormonal agents four times a day. The sex-change operation will cost several thousands of dollars, which the parents do not have.

Larisa Karaseva, a senior specialist of the infants' pathologies department, said that the incident with the family from the Moscow region became a unique occurrence in medical practice. Both the father and the mother bear a defective gene, which caused the pathology. This fact is not important for the adults' health, but it is highly relevant for posterity. The hermaphrodite baby was diagnosed with congenital dysfunction of adrenal cortex. The defect results in the production of incomplete enzymes involved in the synthesis of steroid hormones. As a result, a female fetus suffers underdevelopment of women's genitalia and reproductive organs.

More importantly, the adrenal cortex is responsible for a person's tolerance to stresses. If Alexander and Tatiana stop treating their baby, the child may die. A plastic surgery may have a positive outcome, though: the girl has all chances to grow into a woman.