Reports Of Mexican Mother Pregnant With 9 Babies Were A Hoax

The internet was fascinated by the story of a Mexican mother, Karla Perez, who was said to be pregnant with nine children. It brought back some familiar questions about reproductive technology, since fertility treatments were reported to be used in the conception. All those Octomom debates were brought back to our national discourse.

Well, it turns out that the whole thing was a hoax.

After the news reports of Perez’s pregnancy, local health authorities in Mexico reached out to the mom to offer their support. That’s when they learned that the current mom of four isn’t having nine new infants. In fact, she’s not even pregnant. Like, not at all.

The entire story makes very little sense. As a plea for attention, having nine infants is a pretty easy thing to disprove. With a supposed due date of May 20th, I would assume that the woman’s pregnancy would have to be extremely visible by now if it were true. I realize that some mothers don’t get too large with pregnancy, but nine babies would need some serious space.

The details given in the original reports were very specific. Perez shared the sexes for the babies and claimed to have ultrasound footage. Even the number of her current children changes in the debunking article. While it was originally reported that Perez has a four-year-old and a set of triplets, the hoax reports call her a mother-of-three.

Who knows if we’ll ever hear the whole story? Whatever fueled this woman’s need to pretend that she was pregnant with nine babies, I hope that she receives the help and support she seems to need.

Image Courtesy of Marek Uliasz via Shutterstock