From Deseret News archives:
Removal successful of baby's 2nd head
11-hour surgery on Dominican baby goes smoothly
The medical team led by a Los Angeles-based neurosurgeon completed the operation on 7-week-old Rebeca Martinez in nearly 11 hours, saying it went smoothly.
"We are super happy. This is what we hoped for, and it happened," her father, Franklin Martinez, told The Associated Press. "The only new thing now is that she'll be coming home without the extra part she used to have."
The second head, a partially formed twin that doctors said threatened the girl's development, had its own partly developed brain, ears, eyes and lips.
Eighteen surgeons, nurses and doctors took 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.
"The girl is doing great. The surgery is over and her head has been closed," said Dr. Santiago Hazim, medical director of Santo Domingo's Center for Orthopedic Specialties, where the surgery was performed.
He said she was in intensive care and would be in the hospital at least 10 days.
"Now we begin the second big risk, the post-operation recovery," Hazim said. Rebeca is still susceptible to infection or hemorrhaging, he said.
The surgery was complicated because the two heads share arteries. Although only partially developed, the mouth on her second head moved when Rebeca was being breast-fed.
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.
Without an operation, he said, "the child would barely be able to lift her head at 3 months old."
Lazareff said the pressure from the second head, attached on top of the first and facing up, would have prevented Rebeca's brain from developing.
CURE International, a Lemoyne, Pennsylvania-based charity that funds the orthopedic center and gives medical care to disabled children in developing countries, is paying an estimated $100,000 for the surgery.
Before the surgery began, Rebeca's parents followed her to the door of the operating room and said a prayer over their baby, holding hands and gently caressing their daughter's head. "Be strong, Rebeca. May God be with you," her 26-year-old mother Maria Gisela Hiciano said.
During the operation she and Martinez, 29, waited in a separate room watching baseball on television and receiving visitors who brought flowers and stuffed animals. Psychologists also visited them.
