The Hindu : New Delhi News : Rare surgery performed on newborn

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 04, 2010
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

New Delhi

New Delhi

Rare surgery performed on newborn

Allahabad: A rare surgery was performed on a newborn at a hospital here where the child has been separated from a parasitic twin conjoined to his body at the abdomen.

“We were presented with the case of this small child, born to a family of poor labourer in Mirzapur on Friday,” Paediatric surgeon Dhanesh Agrahari, who led a team of doctors to perform the operation, said.

“It was a tough challenge. It took nearly five hours to complete the surgery which began on Saturday night and was completed only early on Sunday morning. Now, the child has been removed from the ventilator and there appears to be a good chance of his survival,” Dr. Agrahari said.

The child's father Veerendra Kumar, who is now a visibly relieved man, said; “When my wife Laxmi gave birth to the twins, we were unable to figure out whether it was a blessing or a curse. Both had their bodies attached to each other in a frightening way,” Kumar, who is a daily wage labourer, said. He said the doctor did not charge any fee from them for the operation.

“Asymmetric Parasitic Conjoined Twins is a rare phenomenon with an incidence of “not more than one in five lakh children”, Dr. Agrahari said.

“The child was born with a life-sized organism conjoined to his body which warranted immediate surgical intervention. The parasitic twin had a head, mobile limbs and a functional heart. But besides these, all the other organs relating to respiratory and digestive systems were underdeveloped or altogether absent,” he said. -- PTI

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

New Delhi