Any surgery involving the removal of a limb is considered life-changing. However, few are as life-changing as the procedure performed on a baby boy who was born with three arms. Diamond worker Ramesh Makwana's infant son was born with his right arm where it ought to be, but two arms on the left side. Thoroughly shocked and sufficiently worried, Makwana and his wife decided to allow doctors to remove their son's extra limb. And it's a good thing they did! During a pre-op CT scan, doctors discovered the baby born with an extra limb was actually missing quite a few organs. Que the what?
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The unidentified baby boy, who is originally from Bhavnagar, India, suffers from Polymelia, a rare condition that only affects about one in a million infants. Typically, the rare disorder occurs in the womb when the embryo begins to develop as conjoined twins. However, when one twin stops growing, it leaves the remaining twin with a few spare parts–usually extra arms or legs. Or in this particular baby's case, the child is born with one extra arm and a club foot, but down one kidney and a testicle.
Makwana and his wife are already parents to a little girl, and were hoping their baby boy would help complete their family. However, worry and panic began to set in for the new parents when they learned their son was born an extra limb and quite a few missing organs. "When we came to know about his condition, we were worried," Makwana tells the Ahmedabad Mirror. "All we wanted was a healthy baby." Well, it turns out the family needn't have worried at all. Doctors were able to locate the infant's missing testicle; it had been tucked up into his stomach all along. And as for the baby's missing kidney, doctors say he'll be just fine without it.
Having given the 2-week-old baby's parents a little peace of mind, surgeons went to work removing the baby's extra limb and straightening his club foot. The procedure was performed on December 17, and is said to have gone well. Moving forward, the baby will have to undergo physical therapy for his functional left hand, as well as a club foot.
Images via Thinkstock, Dailymail.co.uk
