Baby Born With Four Arms And Four Legs Recovering Well After Surgery

Baby Born With Four Arms And Four Legs Recovering Well After Surgery
Dr. Kakembo Nasser/CNN

A baby boy born with eight limbs is recovering well after doctors removed his 'parasitic twin'.

Three-month old baby Paul Mukisa was born with four legs and four arms - a condition known as parasitic twinning - in Nabigingo, a small village in eastern Uganda.

The additional body parts belonged to a conjoined twin who never fully developed.

As well as the extra limbs, Paul was also born with his heart and liver on the wrong side of his body.

Dr. Kakembo Nasser/CNN

Three months after his birth a team of surgeons performed a delicate three-hour operation to remove four of Paul's limbs.

Dr Nasser Kakembo, one of the surgeons involved in the procedure at Mulago Hospital in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, said the operation was a success.

He said: "There were no intra-operative or post-operative complications.

"The baby was given general anaesthesia 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 the joints.

"We controlled the bleeding and fashioned skin flaps to close the resulting wound."

Paul is scheduled to leave hospital in two weeks and his parents have thanked doctors for performing the risky operation.

According to Dr Kakembo they were 'very grateful because at first they thought it was due to witchcraft'.

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