Officials in southeastern Brazil say doctors performed a caesarean section on a 37-year-old woman only to discover that she wasn't pregnant.
Simone Carvalh, a spokeswoman for the Health Department of the coastal city of Cabo Frio, said on Tuesday that the woman told doctors at the city's Woman's Hospital she was 41 weeks pregnant and in pain.
Carvalho said one reason doctors believed she was pregnant was because "she had the symptoms associated with pregnancy like an enlarged abdomen and nausea".
Carvalho said "doctors could not hear the baby's heartbeat and feeling its life was in danger ordered an emergency cesarean after which they discovered it was a false pregnancy".
The spokeswoman added the woman "was so convinced she was pregnant, that she altered her prenatal tests that showed otherwise because she was convinced the results were wrong".
