Girl Born With 4 Legs, 2 Spines Survives Surgery

A baby girl from the Ivory Coast born with four legs and two spines has been successfully separated from a parasitic twin in a rare and complex surgery at a Chicago hospital.

Ten-month-old Dominique underwent a six-hour procedure involving five surgeons at the Advocate Children’s Hospital in Park Ridge, Illinois, on March 8. She is now thriving with the Chicago foster family who will look after her until she is well enough to return home, her doctors and foster mother told Reuters on Monday.

Dominique was born with a parasitic twin. The bottom half of her not-fully-developed twin’s body protruded from her neck and back.

“A parasitic twin is an identical twin that fails to fully separate in development,” said John R. Ruge, a pediatric neurosurgeon at the hospital. “In other words, not another independent twin, but a twin that was dependent on her body system, such that Dominique’s heart and lungs provided the nourishment.”

Before the surgery

Doctors did not give Dominique’s family name.

Nancy Swabb, from Edgebrook, Illinois, has looked after Dominique since she arrived in the United States for the surgery.

Swabb said she did not want to think about saying goodbye to Dominique when she returns to her family in the Ivory Coast.