Infant’s Doctor Is Hoping for Miracles

Doctors have successfully taken the first step toward separating the fused legs of Milagros Cerron, a 9-month-old Peruvian child dubbed the “Little Mermaid” because of her rare birth defect.

“Everything went well, but it’s a tough time. Her mother is crying, we’re crying,” her father, Ricardo Cerron, 24, told Reuters after the operation Tuesday.

Milagros -- whose name means “miracles” in Spanish -- was born with “mermaid syndrome,” or sirenomelia, which affects from 1 in 60,000 to 1 in 100,000 people.

That makes it about as rare as conjoined twins, but only a handful of patients have survived because most lack kidneys or have other complications. There are few precedents for the risky separation surgery.

Dr. Luis Rubio, who led the surgical team, said Tuesday’s four-hour operation went well. Three silicone bags were inserted between Milagros’ legs to stretch the skin before they were cut apart in an operation expected next month.

Although Milagros’ legs are joined seamlessly from her abdomen to her heels -- with her feet splayed in a “V,” completing the resemblance to a mermaid’s tail -- her legs have separate bones, cartilage and blood supplies, and can be seen to move independently inside their “sack” of fat and tissue.

Milagros weighs 17 pounds and is 24 inches long. She has a healthy heart, and one normal-sized kidney and one small kidney.

Her rudimentary anus, urethra and genitalia are all located together, and genital reconstruction would probably wait until adolescence, Rubio said.

Milagros, who was born April 27 in the eastern Andean town of Huancayo, has been cared for by Rubio since she was 2 days old.

Dark-haired and pretty, she looks normal from the waist up. But she faces a grueling two decades of operations that Rubio hopes will allow her to live an independent life.