World News

Baby Born With 2 Spines and 4 Legs Lives Through Risky Surgery

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Tony Maples Photography

 

At the Advocate Children’s Hospital in Chicago, an intricate and intense surgery was conducted on a baby who’s now 10-months-old. ABC 13 says that the resilient Dominique was born in Africa with two spines and four legs due to a parasitic conjoined twin. The condition is exceedingly rare, and it has taken a team of 50 people to care for the little girl.

Fox News quotes pediatric neurosurgeon John Ruge who explained, “A parasitic twin is an identical twin that fails to fully separate in development. In other words, not another independent twin, but a twin that was dependent on her body system, such that Dominique’s heart and lungs provided the nourishment.”

The surgery itself took six hours and five surgeons, and Dominique stayed in the hospital for five days afterward. Amazingly, she’s already been released to stay with a host family in the Chicago-area who is keeping in touch with Dominique’s family in Africa until the little girl is able to return back home. (Her family members were unable to travel due to lack of funds.) “She took to us immediately,” Nancy Swabb, Dominique’s host, told the Chicago Tribune. “She was affectionate and sweet, so we knew she must have come from a loving family.”