Associated Press
- A South African woman who claimed to give birth to 10 babies at once made the story up, the BBC reported.
- No hospitals in the Gauteng province of South Africa have any record of decuplets being born, government officials said.
- The government said that medical tests showed that 37-year-old Gosiame Sithole was not even pregnant recently.
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A South African woman who recently made headlines after claiming that she gave birth to a record-breaking 10 babies at once reportedly made the news up.
No hospitals in the Gauteng province of South Africa have any record of decuplets being born, government officials said, according to the BBC.
Additionally, the government said that medical tests showed that 37-year-old Gosiame Sithole was not even pregnant recently, the BBC reported.
Sithole was taken to a hospital in Johannesburg for a psychiatric assessment after the birth claims were called into question, local reports said.
A lawyer for Sithole has claimed that his client is being held "being held against her will."
"She declined that she should be taken to the Tembisa Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation because she felt strongly that she is of sound mind," lawyer Refiloe Mokoena told South African news site Independent Online, which first reported on the birth story.
Independent Online has said that the news organization stands by its original reporting on the story, claiming that the government's accusations of a hoax are part of "a cover-up of mammoth proportions by Gauteng Health authorities."
Independent Online initially reported that Sithole gave birth to the set of decuplets at a hospital in Pretoria on June 7.
Sithole's partner Teboho Tsotetsi was quoted by the site at the time saying, "It's seven boys and three girls. She was seven months and seven days pregnant. I am happy. I am emotional."