Girl With Four Arms, Four Legs, To Undergo Extensive Surgery

November 6, 2007 6:28 a.m. EST

Bangalore, India (AHN ) - A two-year old girl is now undergoing an operation for extensive surgery that hopes to normalize the body of the four-armed and four-legged child.

Lakshmi, whose name was derived from the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, got her extra arms limbs, kidney and other parts from a "parasitic twin" that failed to develop in their mother's womb. Being the survivor of the two fetuses, she absorbed her twins' body parts.

Dr. Sharan Patil, lead surgeon in the operation Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore, said "It's going to take many, many hours on a continuous basis to operate on the baby. So, these issues definitely make it complex." A team of 30 doctors will perform the surgery.

Among these complications are that Lakshmi's two spines are merged; she has four kidneys, entangled nerves, two stomach cavities, two chest cavities, and she can neither stand nor walk, CNN News reported.

"It's a big team effort of a lot of skilled surgeons who will be putting their heart and soul into solving the problem of Lakshmi," Patil added, saying there is a 20 to 25 percent of risk of losing Lakshmi.

Shambu, the girl's father, for his part, said, "All this expenditure has happened to make her normal. So far, everything is fine." Lakshmi is considered a goddess in their village in the northern state of Bihar, he added.

The bills for the operation will be shouldered by the hospital's foundation, Dr. Patil Mamatha said.

Www.phreeque.com said there types of parasitic twins are epigastric parasites, dipygus ('double buttocks') or pygomelia ('limbs attached to the buttocks'), craniopagus parasites, fetus in fetu, and diprosopus and sonic hedgehog.

In 1992, a complete dipygus, Abdul-Aziz Rainloun, was born in South Africa, added www.phreeque.com. Two of Rainloun's four legs were surgically removed when he was aged three.

Dipygus parasiticus cases, www.phreeque.com reported, have imperfectly developed legs joined to the pelvis or lower spine. A person with dipygus parasiticus case may not have total control over his limbs, which may be extra hands or feet. However, he cannot move them individually. He may also have extra breasts, or other body parts.