A seven-week-old girl born with one of the world's rarest birth defects died on Saturday, hours after undergoing a delicate operation to remove an undeveloped second head, her doctors said.
Rebeca Martinez died of post-surgical bleeding problems at around 6 am, said Dr Santiago Hazim, medical director of the CURE International Center for Orthopedic Specialties in Santo Domingo.
A team of international doctors operated on Martinez for some 12 hours on Friday to remove the second head in what was thought to be the first such operation ever.
The surgery in the capital of the Caribbean nation was led by Dr Jorge Lazareff, director of pediatric neurosurgery at UCLA's Mattel Children's Hospital, and Dominican surgeons Hazim and Dr Benjamin Rivera.
The doctors had announced the operation was successfully completed late on Friday, but cautioned that the baby would face many risks as she recovered, such as infection or hemorrhaging.
Speaking at a news conference on Saturday with Hazim, the child's parents, Maria Gisela Hiciano and Franklin Martinez, called their daughter's death the will of God and praised the team of 18 doctors who carried out the surgery.
"If there is one grade above super-excellent, it belongs to this team of doctors," the father said. Both parents appeared calm and resigned to their daughter's death.
Franklin Martinez said he had been aware from the start that the surgery would carry risks.
"We hoped we would have Rebeca alive today, but God did not want this to be so, and we respect His will," he said.
The baby was born in mid-December at a hospital in Santo Domingo with the head of an undeveloped twin attached to the top of her skull, facing upward. The infant was otherwise healthy but her brain could not develop normally unless the undeveloped head was removed.
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