Wife Pregnant for 13 Months Needs Prayers Facebook Photo: Hoax

Story:

A MUST READ!!!

“This is a photo of my wife. She has been pregnant for 13months now and yet to deliver.
She is about to be operated because the child is not coming out. Pls post this for me, I need your prayers, I don’t want my wife or baby to die. We have been barren for 6 years and this is supposed to be our first child.

PLEASE PRAY FOR HER”. From Mr. Ben – South Africa. Now we pray, the operation will be successful and Mr. Ben’s wife & baby will be alive. To everyone that reads this, type ‘Amen’ below and share this post if you wish her safe delivery. Don’t ignore, they need your prayers.

Analysis:

The widely shared post on Facebook supposedly originating from Mr. Ben of South Africa claims to show a picture of his wife supposedly pregnant for 13 months and still struggling to deliver the baby. It is said that she is about to be operated and so needs prayers. So the message requests users to comment and then share the post – in the name of prayers.

The Facebook post is not what it seems; the picture that comes with the story actually shows a nurse measuring the belly of a pregnant woman at a maternity ward hospital in Haiti back in March 2009, and the context of the picture is to explain that giving birth is a dangerous business for Haiti’s poor. It does not show any 13 months pregnant woman who needs surgery.

So the claims that the woman in the picture is 13 months pregnant and needs prayers for her surgery are simply fabrications; the story is yet another ‘like-farming’ hoax on Facebook that is designed to generate shares, likes and comments for marketing or other nefarious purposes. It is a common practice of pranksters and cyber fraudsters to come up with such sensitive and sentimental fabricated stories to garner wide public attention. Don’t believe in everything that you read online. Check before you believe, and think if needs to be shared.