A baby born with a rare congenital defect known as sirenomelia
or 'mermaid syndrome' remains alive two weeks after being found
abandoned outside a children's hospital in central China's Hunan Province. The baby is receiving
round-the-clock medical care.?? .
The baby, 21 centimeters in height and weighing 2.45 kg, is in a
stable condition, said Xu Zhiyue, head of the intensive care
department of the Hunan Provincial Children's Hospital, in the
provincial capital Changsha.
Ultrasonic tests have shown the baby is a boy.
Doctors were keeping the baby alive with peritoneal dialysis,
said Xu. The treatment is used on patients suffering kidney
failure. It does the work healthy kidneys would normally do by
cleaning the blood, removing waste and excess fluid from the
body.
The baby was found at the hospital gates apparently abandoned by
the parents and admitted to the hospital on November 12. A note
found inside the child's clothing said only that the baby was born
on November 9.
The baby's two legs are joined from thigh to heel. Doctors say
the child also suffers from severe internal defects – there's no
kidney or urinary tract, its heart does not function properly, the
alimentary tract is deformed and intestines obstructed.
"It's very difficult to conduct peritoneal dialysis on newborns
but the procedure is producing positive results," said Zhu Yimin,
president of the hospital. The dialysis was helping the baby
discharge waste from its body and creating better conditions for
further treatment.
Sirenomelia, or 'mermaid syndrome' occurs in one out of 70,000
births. The condition is almost always fatal within days of
delivery due to the vital organ defects and because of
complications associated with abnormal kidney and bladder
development and function.
There are only two known cases of children who suffer from
'mermaid syndrome' alive in the world today. One is Tiffany Yorks,
a 17-year-old American girl born with sirenomelia whose legs were
successfully separated when she was a baby. The other is
two-year-old Peruvian girl Milagros Cerron who underwent an
operation to separate her legs last year.
Doctors are studying the Hunan baby to determine an operation
schedule, said Zhu. The plan was to first operate on the digestive
tract and deal with the intestinal obstruction to restore the
baby's digestive function, Zhu explained.?
Several other operations were required before the baby's legs
were surgically separated, Zhu said. "The operations will be
complicated and risky but we'll try our best." The hospital is
taking responsibility for treatment costs.
The baby's parents have not made themselves known.
(Xinhua News Agency November 23, 2006)
