Peru’s ‘little mermaid’ healthy after rare surgery

Doctor Luis Rubio (L) holds 13-month-old Milagros Cerron at the hospital in Lima. Picture / Reuters

LIMA, Peru - A 13-month-old girl known as Peru's "Little Mermaid" was alert and healthy on Friday two days after her fused legs were separated in what doctors believe was the second such operation in the world.

Milagros Cerron, whose first name means "miracles" in Spanish, gazed curiously at reporters and other onlookers at Lima's Solidarity Hospital, her tiny toes peeking out of bandages after the risky surgery. Doctors say she could leave intensive care as early as today.

"She is beautiful," Dr Luis Rubio, a surgeon who took on Milagros' case when she was two days old said. "She is in very good spirits and she's strong."

The big-eyed girl was born with a rare defect called Mermaid syndrome, or sirenomelia, which often kills sufferers within a few hours of birth. Doctors hope she will be able to walk by her second birthday.

A 16-year-old American who had surgery to separate her legs when she was a few months old says she believes she is the world's only survivor of the ailment.

More than 50 hours after the operation ended, risks to Milagros' health were "minimal," Rubio said.

"There is a risk of infection, or that the stitches come undone, but fortunately nothing of that sort has occurred so far," Rubio said, adding the girl had overcome breathing problems associated with anesthesia.

Before the four-hour operation, which was broadcast live inside the hospital, Milagros' legs moved separately but were trapped in a sack of tissue and fat down to her heels. Her feet were splayed in a "V," completing the look of a mermaid's tail.

Blood is now reaching the tips of her toes, and her foot reflexes are good. Doctors have opened "little windows" in her bandages to examine the stitches, which Rubio said looked fine.

Over the next 15 days, doctors will carefully bend and move her legs to develop the almost nonexistent muscles.

Milagros will need another operation in five to six months to reconstruct her groin area. She will require several more operations by the time she is a teenager.

Her parents have been keeping vigil at the public hospital where the surgery was performed.

"Everything is OK, everything is stable," said the girl's father, Ricardo Cerron.

The mayor of Lima is the girl's godfather and the city is covering the costs of her treatment.

- REUTERS