Born with extra limbs - PHOTO

The family rushed to a nearby district hospital for help but they were quickly referred to Mulago Hospital in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. There, a team of doctors examined the infant and made the diagnosis of "parasitic twinning," a variant of conjoint twinning in which one of the twins is not fully developed -- baby Paul had been born with a full set of arms and legs and another set from a headless and heartless mirror image twin that never fully grew.The Ugandan doctors ran a series of tests on the eight-limbed newborn which showed that the host and parasitic twin shared part of the pelvic bone. Examinations of Paul's internal organs revealed further abnormalities: his heart was on the right side of his body, instead of the left, while his liver was on the left side as opposed to the right.After these initial investigations, Paul was discharged home for three months as the surgeons wanted to allow him to grow before performing an operation to separate the twins.Finally, on August 18, a Ugandan team of three surgeons, three anesthesiologists and two nurses successfully completed a three-hour operation to remove parts of the parasitic twin from the normal body."The baby was given general anesthesia and the torso and trunk of the parasitic twin -- which had two arms but no head or heart -- was detached from the host baby," said Dr Nasser Kakembo, one of the surgeons who carried out the operation."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 joints. We controlled the bleeding and fashioned skin flaps to close the resulting wound," he added. "There were no intra-operative or post-operative complications and mild blood loss and a precautionary blood transfusion was given."Three weeks after the surgery, the baby is progressing and breastfeeding well, according to the doctors.(CNN)Bakudaily.Az