Judging from her appearance -- healthy and alert -- you would never suppose Lakshmi was only one week removed from a 24-hour operation to remove two extra arms and legs.
Swathed in blankets and lying on her father's lap, the bright-eyed two-year-old Indian girl appeared before reporters without the extra limbs that had led some in her rural village to revere her as an incarnation of the four-armed goddess she was named after.
Shambhu, unseen, carries his daughter Lakshmi during a press conference at Sparsha Hospital in Banglore, India, Nov. 13, 2007. Nearly a week after surgeons removed the extra limbs from the Indian girl born with four arms and four legs, the bright-eyed two-year-old made her first public appearance Tuesday after leaving the hospital's intensive care unit. (photo: chinadaily.com.cn/agencies)
Lakshmi had both of her legs in casts to keep her inverted feet straight and the legs together while her arms were free. After sitting for photographs, her parents quickly whisked her off the stage without speaking to reporters.
Her doctors were encouraged by her progress and said she was responding well enough to treatment to leave the intensive care unit at Sparsh Hospital.
"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.
A team of more than 30 surgeons finished the 24-hour operation Nov. 7 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.
(Agencines via Xinhua November 16, 2007)
