U.S. hospital takes on rare surgery to help baby born with four legs

CHICAGO — Advocate Children’s Hospital surgeons have successfully operated on a baby from Africa who was born with two spines and an extra set of legs protruding from her neck.

The hospital announced Tuesday that 10-month-old Dominique from Ivory Coast, or Cote d’Ivoire, in West Africa, is recovering well from the six-hour, March 8 surgery. The baby has already started sitting up again, said Nancy Swabb, who is hosting the infant in her home during the infant’s recovery in the U.S.

Doctors say she’ll be able to live a normal, fully functional life. “Her recovery has been amazing,” Swabb said. “Children are so resilient.”

Not many hospitals have done such operations, and the surgery was the first of its kind ever performed by Advocate Children’s Hospital.

In the Chicago area, many people think of Lurie Children’s Hospital in downtown Chicago as the go-to facility for complex pediatric operations. Advocate Children’s Hospital, about 15 miles northwest of downtown, admittedly doesn’t attract many patients from abroad and may not be as well-known for complex surgeries, said Dr. Robert Kellogg, one of the five surgeons who operated on Dominique. But he said surgeons at Advocate knew they could help Dominique, whose last name was not being released at her parents’ request.

Dominique was born with what’s known as a parasitic twin, Kellogg said. The other twin, however, never fully developed. Only the lower half of that twin’s body formed, and Dominique was born with that parasitic twin joined to her spine, he said.

Only a handful of cases like Dominique’s, involving a parasitic twin attached at the spine, have ever been documented, he said.