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On January 21, 2017, in a government-run rural health center in Puladinni village in the southern state of Karnataka, India, a boy was born with four legs and two penises. Doctors immediately diagnosed the newborn with polymelia, a congenital birth defect where the patient is born with extra limbs that are often deformed.
What often happens to cause polymelia is that in the womb, an embryo develops into conjoined twins. However, one of the twins stops growing, but continues to develop extra limbs or organs that then attach to the other twin, essentially becoming a parasite.
For this little boy, he’d been born with a parasitic twin attached to his lower half – which only made his medical situation even trickier to navigate.
The doctors who helped deliver the boy said the birth went smoothly, but knew they had to send the newborn off to a larger hospital with more specialized medical care immediately. At their rural location, they weren’t able to provide the boy with the professional care he needed.
Just the day after his birth, the little boy was then transported over 200 miles with his parents, mother Lalitamma and father Chennabasava, to Narayana Health City. Though he arrived on January 24, when he was just three days old, he was already in need of oxygen support and was severely dehydrated.
At Narayana Health City, Dr. Sanjay Rao, senior consultant pediatric surgeon, further explained the boy’s medical situation, “These are problems that happen from time to time and (are) irrespective of socio-economic status.”
“Because the [boy’s] anatomy is not typical, a lot of work had to be done before the operation to clearly define the anatomy, what structures are shared between the parasitic twin and the main baby, the blood vessels need to be identified to control blood loss so there was a lot of pre-operative work to build a road map that would help us during the operation,” Dr. Rao added.
He ultimately recruited 20 doctors, nurses, and technicians to perform the operation with him.
Thankfully, the procedure went smoothly and the young boy is recovering well.
Dr. Rao is grateful that the boy’s parents were able to recognize so quickly that their son needed immediate medical attention. Oftentimes, children born with extra limbs and extremities in India are regarded with superstition or stigma.
He recalls a case in the past where a girl was born with four arms and four legs and regarded by her family and thousands of religious devotees as a reincarnation of a Hindu goddess, so she failed to receive the medical attention she so needed.
“Times are changing. Young parents are now more aware about superstitions,” Dr. Rao continued.
Thanks to these parents’ quick thinking, the boy will be well enough to be discharged by the end of the week. Narayana Health City has promised to provide the boy all the medical attention he needs for the rest of his life.
Although there may be some cosmetic issues in the future that require more operations, Dr. Rao is confident that the boy will have a normal childhood.
