(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-06 23:35

BANGALORE, India - Doctors began operating Tuesday on a 2-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs in an extensive surgery that they hope will leave the girl with a normal body, a hospital official said.

Lakshmi, second from left, sits in her mother Poonam's lap as she poses next to her father Shambhu and brother Mithilesh, right, at the Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore, India, Monday, Nov. 5, 2007. [Agencies]

The girl named Lakshmi is joined to a "parasitic twin" that stopped developing in the mother's womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped fetus.

A team of 30 doctors was removing the extra limbs and organs. They have separated the fused spines and the next step will be to separate the extra limbs and then the rest of the "parasite," said Dr. Sharan Patil, the orthopedic surgeon leading the operation.

"As of now, the child has been responding very well," Patil said several hours into the operation.

Lakshmi is named after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, and some in her village in the northern state of Bihar revere her.

"Everybody considers her a goddess at our village," said her father, Shambhu, who goes by one name. "All this expenditure has happened to make her normal. So far, everything is fine."

Others sought to make money from Lakshmi. Her parents kept her in hiding after a circus apparently tried to buy the girl, they said.

The complications for Lakshmi's surgery are myriad: The two spines are merged, she has four kidneys, entangled nerves, two stomach cavities and two chest cavities. She cannot stand up or walk.

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