An extraordinary surgical success

Chronicling the complicated medical journey of an Indian girl born with eights limbs is a new programme on Discovery Channel that goes on the air this Saturday. “The Girl with Eight Limbs” focuses on this little girl who was born in a nondescript village in Bihar. Her neighbours believed that she was an incarnation of Goddess Lakshmi.Poonam gave birth to the girl without any form of medical supervision or antenatal care. From the day Lakshmi was born, she invoked tremendous curiosity in the village. Hordes of people began turning up from the neighbourhood to see her. The show focuses on her parents’ dilemma, public reactions and the global media attention.
Doctors concluded that Lakshmi carried a parasitic conjoined twin -- a rare anomaly that could kill her if not acted upon. She was actually two bodies united at the pelvis. Only one of the twins had a head. Two pairs of arms and legs had formed at either end of the two adjoining torsos, creating a child with eight limbs.
Her parents, Shambhu and Poonam, were in a dilemma: to accept the surgery to remove her extra limbs or to leave her as she was? Sparsh Hospital’s chairman and chief orthopaedic surgeon Sharan Patil, who conducted the surgery, says Lakshmi’s story was special for more than one reason. “The girl was deprived of good medical care. The condition she was born with was not compatible with survival. A successful surgical separation with such a medical condition was never attempted before in India.” After conducting a series of tests in Bangalore, Dr. Patil assisted by a team of doctors performed a prolonged surgery to separate Lakshmi from her conjoined parasitic twin. The show captures the complications that took place during the surgery as Lakshmi’s extra limbs belonged to a half formed conjoined twin with no head. She had a heart, lungs and liver, but only one kidney. Prior to the surgery, Lakshmi was unable to walk or crawl and had little chance of living past adolescence. Now she can stand up with help and is expected to be able to walk and lead a normal life.