Lakshmi Tatma

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Lakshmi Tatma

Lakshmi before her 27 hour surgery.
Born 2005
Bihar, India
Known for The viable of a pair of ischiopagus conjoined twins who underwent a successful separation surgery in Bangalore, India.

Lakshmi Tatama is an Indian girl born in 2005 in a village in Araria district, Bihar, having "4 arms and 4 legs." She was actually a pair of ischiopagus conjoined twins where one twin was headless due to its head atrophying and chest under-developing in the womb. The result looked like one child with four arms and four legs.

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[edit] Background

Her father, Shambhu, and mother, Poonam, were day laborers who earn less than USD 1, and were unable to afford a separation surgery for their daughter. The daughter was named after Lakshmi, the multi-limbed Hindu goddess of wealth. She was sometimes an object of worship as an incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi; when she was 2 years old, she was known all over India. At one point, a circus had offered the couple a sum of money to buy Lakshmi as a sideshow, which forced them into hiding. At the time of being found by Dr. Patil, she was suffering from an infected pressure ulcer at the neck end of the parasitic twin and continuous fevers.

Lakshmi is their second child. Her older brother is named Mitelesh.

Poonam said in the television program that a few weeks before giving birth to Lakshmi, she had a dream which told her to build a temple to the goddess Lakshmi.

[edit] Surgery

Before the operation, while being cured of the ulcer and the fever, she was again sometimes an object of worship as an incarnation of the goddess Lakshmi. She could drag herself around on all fours, although impeded by the trailing parasitic twin.

She was the subject of a surgery carried out by Dr. Sharan Patil and 30 other orthopedics at Sparsh Hospital in Bangalore, India.

The twins' two pelvises formed a single combined ring. Each twin had one working kidney. [1]. The autosite's feet had clubfoot.

The stomach, arms, legs, kidney, spine, among other limbs and organs, of the parasitic twin merged with the girl's body. The twins' backbones were joined and nerves entangled. Lakshmi could not crawl normally, or walk, but she could drag herself around somewhat; doctors surmised early that without the operation, she would not be able to live into her teens. The surgery began on Tuesday, 6 November 2007, at 7 am IST (1:30 AM UTC), and was planned to last 40 hours at the most. An estimated cost of over USD$625,000, is being paid entirely by the hospital's non-profit foundation. A team of more than 30 surgeons worked in shifts. The surgery lasted for 27 hours. The doctors gave Lakshmi a 75-80% chance of survival during the surgery.

The steps of the operation were:

  1. (8 hours): Abdominal operation: remove the parasite's abdominal organs.
  2. The autosite proves to have a healthy kidney and a necrotic kidney; remove the necrotic kidney and replace it by the parasite's kidney. Tie off the blood vessels that supplied the parasite.
  3. Move the reproductive system and the urinary bladder into the autosite.
  4. (6 to 8 hours) Amputate the parasite's legs: this caused heavy bleeding. Cut the joined backbone: the nervous system around the join was found to be extremely chaotic, and care had to be taken to avoid causing paralysis.
  5. Separation, at 12.30 am on 7th November 2007. The combined pelvic ring seems to have been divided through or near the parasite's hip joints and not at the pubic symphyses. The remaining incomplete pelvic ring was cut and bent to make the ends meet, and not left as an open part-circle. [1]
  6. External fixation to hold the parts of the pelvis in place. This caused the pelvis to close in 3 weeks to the normal position.
  7. (4 hours): Suturing. Operation completed at 10 am on 7 November 2007.

Lakshmi's recovery so far has been swift and satisfactory. Within a week after the surgery, the doctors held a press conference showing Lakshmi looking healthy with feet still bandaged being carried by her father. She was in the hospital for a month after the operation.

Afterwards, she and her family moved to Jodhpur in Rajasthan, where Lakshmi joined a disabled children's school and her father got a job on that school's farm.

As of February 2008, a later operation is planned to bring her legs closer together.

Another operation may be needed to rebuild pelvic floor muscles. [2]

The last view of her in the television program showed her making an effort to walk, and with her thighs fastened together (with a spacer) to keep her pelvic ring in place while it heals, and casts on her shins and legs (likely to cure the clubfoot).

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Channel 4 UK TV program "Bodyshock: The Girl With Eight Limbs", 9 to 10 pm Tuesday 19 February 2008 and 7 to 8 pm Sunday 24 February 2008

[edit] External links

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