A six-day-old conjoined twins admitted to Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital here died on Monday hours after doctors performed a surgery to remove the extra limbs on the infant.
The male infant, the fifth child of Mamundi, a farm labourer, and Jaya from Manapparai, was admitted to the hospital on December 25 after being born in a private hospital in Manapparai. Doctors at the government hospital here said the conjoined twins, with its intestine and spleen projecting out of the abdomen was of a very rare “parasitic pagus” type.
On Monday, a team of two paediatric surgeons and two anaesthetists carried out a three-and-half-hour operation under general anaesthesia when the extra legs and arms were surgically removed. The infant was put on ventilator support after the surgery and his condition was closely monitored.
“The intestine and spleen were kept under sterile covering as inserting it into the abdominal cavity immediately could have led to respiratory problem. We had planned to take up the task later. But the baby died by about 9 p.m., due to cardiac arrest,” D. Baskaran, paediatric surgeon of the hospital, told The Hindu .
