Lakshmi learns to walk; faces more surgery

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Indian extra-limbed girl Lakshmi learns to walk

By Rahul Bedi in New Delhi

16/06/2008

 

Secreted in her home in eastern Bihar state by her parents

after a circus tried buying her, Lakshmi Tatma was gurgling

joyfully as she trundled around at the weekend clutching a

baby walker at a school for the disabled.

 

But doctors at Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore, who

successfully operated on her for 27 hours last year, said this

was not the end of the ordeal of the baby girl named after

the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, Lakshmi.

 

They said in addition to punishing rehabilitation she would

need additional surgery on her spine and feet to achieve near

normalcy.

 

Initially doctors had given Lakshmi an 80 percent chance of

surviving the operation.

 

Lakshmi was born fused to her conjoined 'parasitic twin'

that stopped developing in the womb and was attached to

her at the pelvis.

 

She had absorbed the organs and body parts of the

undeveloped foetus, a condition that occurs on an average

once in 50,000 conjoined twin births, requiring doctors to

separate the organs and body parts in a delicate operation.

 

Thirty-six doctors covering a range of specialities from

paediatrics to plastic surgery were involved in the operation

which gave Lakshmi a lease of life after innumerable

doctors said it was unlikely for her to live beyond her teens

with her condition.

 

The initial separation of the parasitic parts was completed in

the first phase whilst the second was devoted to her pelvic

reconstruction and skin cell replacement.

 

One of the girl's two kidneys was in both bodies, requiring

doctors to transfer the organ from the parasitic structure into

the main body.

 

Lakshmi was brought by her poor labourer parents from

Bihar to Bangalore for the surgery and the hospital agreed to

bear the cost of the operation, estimated at around Rs 2.4

million.

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/india/213

8766/Indian-extra-limbed-girl-Lakshmi-learns-to-walk.html

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