Girl born with 8 limbs stable after surgery

November 13, 2007 10:03 AM ET

BANGALORE, India (AP) — A bright-eyed Indian girl born with four arms and four legs made her first public appearance Tuesday since surgeons removed the extra limbs in a 24-hour operation.
Swathed in blankets and lying on her father's lap, the 2-year-old girl, named Lakshmi, appeared healthy and alert. Both of her legs were in casts while her arms were free.

After sitting for photographs, her parents quickly took her away without speaking to reporters.

Lakshmi's doctors were encouraged by her progress and said she was responding well enough to treatment to leave the hospital's intensive care unit.

"She is coping very well and she is stable," said chief surgeon Dr. Sharan Patil. "Lakshmi is safe at the moment."

Lakshmi was born joined at the pelvis to a "parasitic twin" that stopped developing in her mother's womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped twin. The extra limbs had led some people in her rural village to revere her as an incarnation of the four-armed goddess she was named after.

A team of more than 30 surgeons finished the 24-hour operation last Wednesday at a hospital in the southern city of Bangalore. They removed the extra limbs, transplanted a kidney from the twin and reconstructed Lakshmi's pelvic area.

Lakshmi has begun eating solid food again and has been off her respirator since Friday, Patil said.

But despite her swift progress, Patil cautioned that Lakshmi still had a long way to go toward a full recovery.

"We still have things to do, but so far, so good," he said.

Lakshmi will need further treatment and possible surgery for clubbed feet before she will be able to walk. Her wounds from surgery are still healing and Patil said they will continue to monitor her closely.

The casts on her legs are intended to keep her inverted feet straight and the legs together.

He did not say when she might be able to return home.

Children born with deformities in rural India, such as the remote village in the northern state of Bihar where Lakshmi is from, often are viewed as reincarnated gods.