The Little Mermaid's hope for 'miracle legs'

LIMA - A Peruvian baby dubbed the "Little Mermaid" because she was born with her legs fused will have surgery this month to try to separate them.

Nine-month-old Milagros Cerron - her name means miracles in Spanish - is one of only a handful of people born with the rare sirenomelia, or mermaid syndrome, to have lived more than a few hours, experts say.

For Luis Rubio, the doctor leading the Peruvian team that will cut her legs apart on February 24, the past year has been a crash course in tackling a condition he had read about in textbooks but never expected to have to treat. An estimated 1 in 60,000 to 100,000 are born with the condition.

Doctors believe there may only be one other surviving "mermaid" - 16-year-old American Tiffany Yorks, whose legs were separated when she was a few months old.

Experts say sirenomelia is about as rare as conjoined twins but is nearly always fatal because most sufferers lack kidneys or have other complications.

"It is very, very rare," said Professor Pierpaolo Mastroiacovo, director of the Rome-based International Centre of Birth Defects. "The presence of renal agenesis [absence or imperfect development] makes survival very rare and improbable."

From the waist up, Milagros smiles and babbles like any healthy infant. Below the waist, her stomach merges seamlessly into her legs, which are joined all the way to her heels.

With her tiny feet splayed in a 'V', the impression of a mermaid's forked tail is complete.

The bones of both legs are visible and move separately, "as if she wanted to get free of this sack", Rubio said.

He took on Milagros' case when she was 2 days old.

Milagros' father, Ricardo Cerron, 24, appealed for aid when she was born on April 27, 2004, in the Andean town of Huancayo, around 300km east of Lima.

"I thought it was something horrifying," he said, recalling his reaction on seeing his daughter. "I was in total despair."

Her legs have separate cartilage, bones and blood supplies, and she has one good kidney. Her heart and lungs are fine.

Milagros, who weighs 7.5kg and is 60cm long, has a rudimentary anus, urethra and genitalia all located together.

Doctors will insert three silicone bags filled with saline solution between her legs next Wednesday and gradually add liquid to stretch the skin to cover exposed wounds once they are cut apart

The doctor who began treating Tiffany Yorks when she was one hour old said it was hugely risky.

- REUTERS