Surgeons separate legs of little ‘mermaid’

Monte Hayes

Doctors performing the four-and-a-half hour surgery had planned to begin repairing the birth defect only up to the child’s knees, but the procedure exceeded the expectations of the medical team.

“This is the final result that we have come to in this extraordinary surgical intervention,” said Dr Luis Rubio, holding up 13-month-old Milagros Cerron’s legs in a V-shape, displaying the line of stitches extending up from her heels to her inner thighs. “We have mobility of the independent knee joints.”

Milagros’s legs had been fused together from her thighs to her ankles when she was born. Hours before the surgery, Milagros, whose name means “miracles”, giggled and played on her hospital bed while Dr Rubio, leader of a team of 11 surgeons performing the operation, looked on.

Milagros was born with a rare congenital defect known as sirenomelia, or “mermaid syndrome”, which occurs in one out of every 70,000 births.

There are only three known cases of children with the affliction alive in the world today .

The surgery was televised live and was watched by the child’s parents. Milagros’s father, Ricardo Cerron, aged 24, broke into tears as Dr Rubio made the first incision at the start of the surgery late Tuesday.

The baby’s mother, Sara Arauco, aged 20, put her hand to her mouth.

However, later, as the surgery progressed, Ms Arauco said her prayers had been answered.

“Yes, this is a miracle,” she said. “I know, even though I am a sinner, God has paid attention to me, maybe not for my sake, but for my daughter’s.”

Asked about the difficulty of watching the graphic images broadcast on the screen above her, she said, “I am strong. I am young.”

The first sign that the operation was going well came 30 minutes into the surgery, when Dr Rubio announced, “We have overcome the first difficulty.”

He was referring to a major artery that connected both legs.

“We are cutting and the irrigation is perfect on both sides.”

The objective was to separate the child’s legs from the heels to the knees, but Dr Rubio told reporters afterward that the doctors were able to “exceed” that goal.

Milagros was stable, he said.

Dr Rubio said Milagros had suffered frequent urinary infections because her urinary tract, anus and genitals end in the same opening, almost like a “sewer”.

In the past three months, doctors inserted silicone bags filled with saline solution to stretch the skin so it would be able to cover her legs once they are cut apart.

Milagros has a deformed left kidney and a very small right one located very low in her body.

Dr Rubio said Milagros would need up to 15 years of corrective surgeries to reconstruct and repair her sexual, digestive and other internal organs.