Girl born with 8 limbs goes home after surgery

Indian doctors successfully removed 4 extra arms, legs about a month ago

Aijaz Rahi / AP

Lakshmi, 2, left, sits on her father's lap before she was discharged from the Sparsha Hospital in Bangalore, India, on Saturday.

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Successful surgery
View images of Lakshmi before and after a surgery that removed her extra limbs.

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updated 11:11 p.m. ET Dec. 15, 2007

BANGALORE, India - A 2-year-old girl who was born with four arms and four legs left a hospital in southern India on Saturday little more than a month after surgeons there successfully removed her extra limbs.

The surgeon who led more than 30 doctors in the marathon surgery said Lakshmi was making good progress and should be mobile soon.

"Lakshmi is fine and stable," chief surgeon Dr. Sharan Patil told The Associated Press. "She should face no problem in walking."

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Lakshmi was born joined at the pelvis to a "parasitic twin" that stopped developing in her mother's womb. The surviving fetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped twin.

A team of more than 30 surgeons performed a 24-hour operation on Nov. 7 at the Sparsh hospital in Bangalore, the capital of southern Karnataka state. They removed the extra limbs, transplanted a kidney from the twin and reconstructed Lakshmi's pelvic area.

"Lakshmi is a hero," Patil said Saturday.

"Lakshmi, who never turned (over) earlier, started turning after the surgery. She was even able to stand for 10 minutes on the bed holding the window grill, which is remarkable," the Press Trust of India news agency quoted Patil as saying.

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Girl born with 8 limbs smiling after surgery

Lakshmi's parents said they were taking her back to their rural village in eastern Bihar state where she had been revered by some as an incarnation of the four-armed Hindu goddess she was named after.