Girl with 8 limbs' surgery going well

BANGALORE, India (AP ) -- Surgeons in India said a mammoth 40-hour operation on a two-year-old girl born with four arms and four legs was going according to plan.

"So far, so good," Dr. Sharan Patil, the head surgeon, told reporters after 10 hours of surgery to separate Lakshmi Tatma from her "parasitic twin."

The task began early Tuesday in the southern Indian city of Bangalore and is expected to go on through the night.

Patil told reporters the team of 30 surgeons had begun the process of severing Lakshmi from her conjoined twin, which stopped developing in the mother's womb and has a torso and limbs but no head.

He said the spinal cord had been successfully separated and that body tissues vital for the girl's survival had been isolated and retained.

Patil said orthopedic surgeons would now begin the painstaking task of separating fused bones connecting the girl to her twin. He said Lakshmi was in a stable condition and was responding well to the surgery. Watch images of Lakshmi as she prepares for surgery .

When Lakshmi was born into a poor, rural Indian family, villagers in the remote settlement of Rampur Kodar Katti in the northern state of Bihar believed she was sacred. As news of her birth spread, locals queued for a blessing from the baby.

Her parents, Shambhu and Poonam Tatma, named the girl after the Hindu goddess of wealth who has four arms. However, they were forced to keep her in hiding after they were approached by men offering money in exchange for putting their daughter in a circus.

The couple, who earn just $1 a day as casual laborers, were keen for her to have the operation but were unable to pay for the rare procedure, which has never before been performed in India.

Many villagers, however, remain opposed to surgery and are planning to erect a temple to Lakshmi, who they still revere as sacred.

After Patil visited the girl in her village from Narayana Health City hospital in Bangalore, the hospital's foundation agreed to fund the $200,000 operation.

The non-stop procedure will go on through the night with surgeons working eight-hour shifts to separate her spinal column and kidney from that of her twin.

The operation is being conducted by specialists in pediatrics, neurosurgery, orthopedics and plastic surgery. Without it, doctors say, Lakshmi would be unlikely to survive beyond early adolescence.

Her parents are being given regular updates but are not allowed to see their daughter during the operation. E-mail to a friend