SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic - An infant girl died Saturday after
surgery to remove a second head, her mother said.
A medical team completed the operation Friday evening but said 8-week-old
Rebeca Martinez had been susceptible to infection or hemorrhaging. The baby died 12 hours after the surgery, believed to be the first of its kind.
"She was too little to resist the surgery," the mother, 26-year-old Maria
Gisela Hiciano, said by telephone from her home, sobbing softly.
Hiciano said doctors told her Rebeca died around 6 a.m.
The second head, which doctors said threatened the girl's development, grew from the top of Rebeca's skull and had its own partly developed brain, ears, eyes and lips. During the surgery, 18 surgeons, nurses and doctors had taken several rotations to cut off the undeveloped tissue, clip the veins and arteries, and close the skull using a bone and skin graft from the second head.
Doctors had warned her parents that Rebeca confronted "the second big risk, the post-operation recovery," according to Dr. Santiago Hazim, medical director of Santo Domingo's Center for Orthopedic Specialties, where the surgery was performed.
The operation was critical because the head on top was growing faster than
the lower one, said Dr. Jorge Lazareff, the lead brain surgeon and director of
pediatric neurosurgery at the University of California at Los Angeles' Mattel
Children's Hospital.
Lazareff led a team that successfully separated conjoined Guatemalan twin
girls in 2002. Hiciano and her husband, 29-year-old Franklin Martinez, have two other children, ages 4 and 1.
( I tried to attachment file picture but the size was too big).
surgery to remove a second head, her mother said.
A medical team completed the operation Friday evening but said 8-week-old
Rebeca Martinez had been susceptible to infection or hemorrhaging. The baby died 12 hours after the surgery, believed to be the first of its kind.
"She was too little to resist the surgery," the mother, 26-year-old Maria
Gisela Hiciano, said by telephone from her home, sobbing softly.
Hiciano said doctors told her Rebeca died around 6 a.m.
The second head, which doctors said threatened the girl's development, grew from the top of Rebeca's skull and had its own partly developed brain, ears, eyes and lips. During the surgery, 18 surgeons, nurses and doctors had taken several rotations to cut off the undeveloped tissue, clip the veins and arteries, and close the skull using a bone and skin graft from the second head.
Doctors had warned her parents that Rebeca confronted "the second big risk, the post-operation recovery," according to Dr. Santiago Hazim, medical director of Santo Domingo's Center for Orthopedic Specialties, where the surgery was performed.
The operation was critical because the head on top was growing faster than
the lower one, said Dr. Jorge Lazareff, the lead brain surgeon and director of
pediatric neurosurgery at the University of California at Los Angeles' Mattel
Children's Hospital.
Lazareff led a team that successfully separated conjoined Guatemalan twin
girls in 2002. Hiciano and her husband, 29-year-old Franklin Martinez, have two other children, ages 4 and 1.
( I tried to attachment file picture but the size was too big).
