The father of Peru's "little mermaid," the 9-month-old baby born with legs fused from her thighs to her ankles, said she is doing well ahead of an operation to separate her legs but that he dreads the danger she still must face.
Milagros Cerron, who was born April 27, last year, has been undergoing daily sessions in a hyperbaric chamber to improve blood circulation to her skin and the fat in her legs.
On Feb. 8, three bags of silicone were inserted between her legs at the ankles, knees and thighs during a three-hour operation. The bags will be filled with saline solution every three days to stretch the skin.
"We have gone through some difficult moments waiting," her father, Ricardo Cerron, 24, said Monday. "The first operation was a little bad but the hyperbaric chamber sessions are going well."
Milagros' doctors said the surgery will occur in 35 to 40 days but she must first complete 20 days of hyperbaric treatment.
"We are waiting for this day with happiness on one hand, but on the other with a sense of trepidation, waiting to see if everything is going to be OK," Cerron said. "We don't know how it is going to go."
Milagros, whose name translates to "miracles" in English, was serene in the arms of her mother, 19-year-old Sara Arauco, during a visit by an Associated Press Television crew on Monday.
The baby was born with a rare congenital defect known as sirenomelia, or "mermaid syndrome," which occurs in one out of every 70,000 births. There are only three known cases of children with the affliction alive in the world today.
The deformity is almost always fatal within days of delivery because of complications due to serious defects to vital organs.
The operation to separate Milagros' legs has never been attempted in Peru and will be performed by a group of physicians, including trauma surgeons, plastic surgeons, cardiovascular surgeons, neurologists, gynecologists and pediatricians.
Rolando Pinto, a plastic surgeon, said the operation will be performed in two stages. The first will separate the baby's legs from the ankles to the knees and a later surgery will separate her thighs.
To prepare, the doctors have been studying a similar operation performed on an American girl who is now 16 years old.
Although the doctors are optimistic, the head of the team, Dr. Luis Rubio, stressed the surgery has inherent complications.
"This is an anatomy totally different from a normal anatomy," he said. "There are arteries that travel from the right leg to the left side, from the right thigh to the left [and] there are a connection of arteries at the level of the knees."
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