Baby born in Uganda with four arms, four legs has successful surgery

KAMPALA, Uganda, Sept. 9 (UPI) -- A baby born with eight limbs in Uganda has undergone a successful surgery to remove the additional body parts.

Paul Mukisa was born May 27 with what doctors diagnosed as "parasitic twinning." The extra limbs were part of a conjoined twin who never fully developed, and had neither heart nor head.

Ugandan doctors also discovered baby Paul was born with his heart on the right, not the left, side of his body, and his liver was on the left and not the right side of his body.

While conjoined twins occur at a rate of one in 50,000, parasitic twins are incredibly rare.

More than three months after his birth, a team of three surgeons, three anesthesiologists and two nurses at Mulago Hospital in Kampala performed a three-hour operation on August 18 to remove the parasitic twin.

Dr. Nasser Kakembo, one of the surgeons involved in the operation, described the separation process.

"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."

The operation was successful. "There were no intra-operative or post-operative complications," said Kakembo.

The parents, he added, "were very grateful because at first they thought it was due to witchcraft, and their baby was a laughing stock because of the abnormalities."

Baby Paul remains hospitalized during his recovery and is expected to be released in two weeks. Doctors predict he will make a full recovery but "may have a wide gait due to the large pelvic bone, and this may require orthopedic reconstruction in the future."