Egyptian Doctors Remove Baby's Second Head (with pics)

[Fenris]

BENHA, Egypt (Reuters) - Egyptian doctors said they removed a second head from a 10-month-old girl suffering from one of the rarest birth defects in an operation Saturday.

Abla el-Alfy, a consultant in paediatric intensive care, told Reuters at the hospital in Benha, near Cairo, that Manar Maged was in a serious but improving condition after the procedure to treat her for craniopagus parasiticus -- a problem related to that of conjoined twins linked at the skull.

"We are still working on the baby. After surgery ... you get unstable blood pressure, you get fever. But she is stabilizing," Alfy said. "We have some improvement."

As in the case of a girl who died after similar surgery in the Dominican Republic a year ago, the second twin had developed no body. The head that was removed from Manar had been capable of smiling and blinking but not independent life, doctors said.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20050219/sc_nm/egypt_baby_dc

[auntAgonist]

1. Cannot imagine the anguish and fear

a family would go through. Best wishes to the child for a recovery.


my heart goes out to them.

[LostInAnomie]

2. I wonder if this were done in the US if there would be protests.

I'm sure someone would classify the other head as alive.

It does raise interesting ethical questions though. Could this other head be conscious? If it where conscious in any form would it be ethical to remove it from what was keeping it alive? etc.

I feel for the family, and what they are going through. I can't imagine how hard it would be.

[Maddy McCall]

3. So the removed head had emotions.

God I'd hate to have to go through this, as a mother.

[flamingyouth]

4. I can't even begin to imagine what those parents are going through

:cry: