Uganda: 8-limbed baby progresing well after successful operation

Surgeons working on corrective surgery on baby born with four legs and four arms. PHOTO/CNN

A baby born with four legs and four arms is progressing well after surgeons in Uganda successfully completed an operation to remove his extra limbs.

Ugandan doctors ran a series of tests on the eight-limbed newborn which showed that the host and parasitic twin shared part of the pelvic bone. Examinations of the baby’s internal organs revealed further abnormalities: his heart was on the right side of his body, instead of the left, while his liver was on the left side as opposed to the right.

On August 18, team of 3 surgeons, 3 anesthesiologists and 2 nurses successfully completed a 3-hour operation to remove parts of the parasitic twin from the normal body.

According to one of the surgeons who carried out the operation, Dr. Nasser Kakembo, “the baby was given general anesthesia and the torso and trunk of the parasitic twin — which had two arms but no head or heart — was detached from the host baby.”

“Then we also detached the lower limbs of the parasitic twin from the host, which included disarticulating the right and left lower limbs as they were attached by joints. We controlled the bleeding and fashioned skin flaps to close the resulting wound,” he added. “There were no intra-operative or post-operative complications and mild blood loss and a precautionary blood transfusion was given.”,

Three weeks after the surgery, the baby is progressing and breastfeeding well, according to the doctors.

Read more: CNN