Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Baby with 3 arms - The will of God?

For those xians who attribute everything to their god’s will, what kind of cruel joke or “test” is the supreme prankster up to with this? Though many xians will say these things happen because of the "evilness" in the world, of course we know that this is just a freak of nature and something gone wrong in development of the fetus that HUMAN DOCTORS will have to correct.

SHANGHAI, China - Doctors in Shanghai on Tuesday were considering surgery options for a two-month old boy born with an unusually well-formed third arm.

Neither of the boy’s two left arms is fully functional and tests have so far been unable to determine which was more developed, said Dr. Chen Bochang, head of the orthopedics department at Shanghai Children’s Medical Center.

“His case is quite peculiar. We have no record of any child with such a complete third arm,” Chen said in a telephone interview. “It’s quite difficult to decide how to do the operation on him.”

The boy, identified only as “Jie-jie,” also was born with just one kidney and may have problems that could lead to curvature of the spine, according to local media reports.

Jie-jie cried when either of his left arms was touched, but smiled and responded normally to other stimuli, the reports said.

Chen said doctors hoped to work out a plan for surgery, but the boy’s small size made it impossible to perform certain tests that would help them prepare.

“We are meeting with several experts now. We hope we could work the plan out soon,” Chen said.

Media reports said other children have been reported born with additional arms and legs, but in all those cases it was clear what limb was more developed.

Chen’s hospital is one of China’s most experienced in dealing with unusual birth defects, including separating conjoined twins. Like Jie-jie, many of the children are sent to relatively wealthy Shanghai from the poor inland province of Anhui.

1 comment:

Stardust said...

Elise,
A third arm would come in pretty handy, but the child would be made fun of mercilessly.

Apparently doctors and the parents thought it was best to remove the arm. The baby has since had surgery to remove the "weaker" arm and is doing well.