Doctors in Bangalore, India have successfully operated on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs. It took a team of 36 surgeons, 27 hours to remove Lakshmi Tatma's parasitic twin. Parasitic twins occur when twin embryos do not fully separate in the womb and one twin stops developing and attaches itself to the other healthy twin. In Lakshmi's case her headless twin is joined at the pelvis. Lakshmi is still under under observation but doctors say she is stable and recovering.
When Lakshmi was born into a poor, rural Indian family, villagers in the remote settlement of Rampur Kodar Katti in the northern state of Bihar believed she was sacred. As news of her birth spread, locals waited in line for a blessing from the baby.
Her parents, Shambhu and Poonam Tatma, named the girl after the Hindu goddess of wealth who has four arms. However, they were forced to keep her in hiding after they were approached by men offering money in exchange for putting their daughter in a circus.
The couple, who earn just $1 a day as casual laborers, wanted her to have the operation but were unable to pay for the rare procedure, which has never before been performed in India.
After Patil visited the girl in her village from Narayana Health City hospital in Bangalore, the hospital's foundation agreed to fund the $200,000 operation.
The operation is being conducted by specialists in pediatrics, neurosurgery, orthopedics and plastic surgery. Without it, doctors say, Lakshmi would be unlikely to survive beyond early adolescence.
Planning for the surgery took a month, Patil said, and Lakshmi spent that month in the hospital.
Her parents are being given regular updates but are not allowed to see their daughter during the operation.
"We are quite optimistic," Patil told CNN. "We do expect that she should be able to walk normally and lead a normal life."
Source: edition.cnn.com
