Indian girl doing well after operation

The two-year-old Indian girl born with four arms and four legs was showing the first sign of improvement today after an operation to remove the extra limbs, doctors said.

The girl, Lakshmi, was being kept sedated in the intensive care unit at a hospital in the southern Indian city of Mangalore during what doctors said was a critical 72-hour period following the operation.

"Lakshmi has moved her toes and hands for the first time and opened her eyes briefly," head surgeon Dr. Sharan Patil said.

Doctors were slowly reducing the amount of sedatives, but she was still breathing on a respirator.

"She is progressing in the right direction," he said.

However, doctors were still cautious.

"She is a two-year-old girl who has undergone massive surgery, we have to watch and wait," said a hospital spokeswoman.

Lakshmi, who has been revered by some in her village as a reincarnation of the four-armed Hindu goddess she was named for, was born joined at the pelvis to a "parasitic twin" that stopped developing in her mother's womb.

The surviving foetus absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts of the undeveloped foetus.

Yesterday a team of more than 30 surgeons conducted the operation, removing the extra limbs, transplanting a kidney from the twin and reconstructing her pelvic area in the hope she would be able to lead a normal life.

"Beyond our expectations, the reconstruction worked wonderfully well," Sharan Patil said Wednesday after the operation, which lasted more than 24 hours. "We were able to bring the pelvic bones together successfully, which takes away the need for another procedure."

However, Lakshmi will need further treatments and possible surgery for clubbed feet before she will be able to walk, he said.