Baby Born With Legs Like a Mermaid

Her name means "miracles" in Spanish. Nine-month-old Milagros Cerron, was born in the Andean town of Huancayo, Peru with an extremely rare condition called sirenomelia, or mermaid syndrome, in which her legs are fused together, reports Reuters.



Only 1 in 60,000 to 100,000 people are born with mermaid syndrome and almost all die within a few hours. Milagros is a miracle because she has lived. Just one other "mermaid" is known to have survived, and that is American Tiffany Yorks, 16, whose legs were separated when she was a few months old. Now Milagros faces this same very risky surgery. On Feb. 24 doctors in Lima, Peru will cut her legs apart. The lead surgeon has spent the past nine months in a crash course learning as much as possible about a condition that he never expected to treat, reports Reuters.



Sirenomelia is as rare as conjoined twins, but this condition is almost always fatal because most of its victims do not have kidneys. Even though her stomach merges seamlessly into her legs, which are joined to the heels, and her tiny feet are splayed in a "V" shape--giving the impression of a mermaid's forked tail--Milagros smiles and babbles like any other healthy baby, reports Reuters. She has a rudimentary anus, urethra, and genitalia all located together; however, the bones of both legs are easily visibile and move separately. She has one good kidney, and her heart and lungs are fine. The hospital in which Milagros is being treated is a mobile facility run out of old buses in the poor northern district of Lima.


http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/news/photosear...5-l1&floc=wn-np

freaky! poor girl

how are they going to seperate her legs i wonder? its going to be quite the surgery. poor little girl, i hope it goes well.

WTF?


Poor girl....hope they can fix it.

thats weird yet interesting

i've seen something like that before....

they just cut down the middle, and the bones weren't joined that much so they just split the joint leg thing into two seperate legs i believe...

its so weird though, maybe this happening before started off the mermaid myths

Awwww.. how sad... at least there is a surgical option to try to fix her abnormality.

I hope they are successful!

Yes i hope they are able to help her ..its so sad when someone, especially a baby, has to go through something like this

but atleast due to being a baby she won't remember any of it when shes older...

Hmm...I haven't heard of this before.
Anyway, I hope the surgery goes well. Conditions such as this can be heartbreaking sometimes.

aww poor baby she so cute though !!!

i actually find it more sad when a teenager or adult goes through things like this, as a baby the baby doesnt know anything else, to her she is normal, and of coarse it is always easier to fix things like this at a younger age, not to mention when she is older she will have no recolection of it

Nine-month-old Milagros Cerron is examinated by doctor Luis Rubio at the hospital in Lima, February 1, 2005. The Peruvian baby dubbed the "Little Mermaid" because she was born with a rare condition in which her legs are fused, will have surgery this month to try to separate them, doctors said. Nine-month-old Milagros Cerron; her name means miracles in Spanish , is one of only a handful of the estimated 1-in-60,000 to 100,000 people born with sirenomelia, or mermaid syndrome, to have lived more than a few hours, experts say. Picture taken February 1, 2005. REUTERS/Pilar Olivares

It's a pity one of the big hospitals don't sponsor her and do the surgery.
A mobile hospital? maybe for lesser stuff, but this is going to be major work.
Good luck to the family, I hope things turn out alright.

Well atleast she wasnt born with the head of a fish...

at least she won't have to learn to walk like that.

hmm it looks like the legs are stuck up like taht too since all f the pics have here legs up the same way


poor poor little girl

She certainly has a lovely smile and doesn't seem to be bothered by the fuss. She is a beautiful little girl.

The fusion puts me in mind of a friend of mine who was a thalidomide victim. He was remarkable despite his lack of digits like we have-he could rebuild an engine of a car. I think his feet were also affected.

Lovely person. I still remember him after all this time. We were really good friends and I didn't like seeing him picked on.