Child born with partially formed head.
 

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...xwa10102041432

Thats just crazy

Whoa.... it's like coneheads, except in real life...

I wonder if this can be blamed on bad health conditions, drug use, or bad genetics?

That is just gross. That poor child.

damn, that's sad. it looks as if there was a twin growth there, looking at the top it looks like an ear and some deformed facial parts. maybe a siamese twin. i would bet that xrays will show that she has 2 brains. far out!

*wrote that before i read the story*
way far out!

Just...blah....ew made me shiver.

That's so sad :(

Wow that's really....strange and sad. I wonder what the odds are of something like this happening.

As a side note, let's please continue to try to not just post links and instead quote the articles in the thread as well. Thanks. I've taken care of this one for you ;)

That's totally messed up :/ ... hope the baby survives the operation and has a chance at a decent life.

This reminds me of the Conjoined Fetus Lady episode on Southpark.

do you think that if they left her alone and she grew up, that she could harness the power of that second brain?

I doubt it. As far as I know, the second head is just a conjoined twin that has been absorbed by the babies own body during gestation.

wow....

i feel so sad for that baby and so creeped out at the same time by the big vein and eyes. but if i was her mom, i would love her with everything i have!!

Sorry about that, from now on ill put a quote.

could have gone without seeing that. ewe. Feel bad for the parents of that poor child.

She's just trying to get ahead in life!

That is disgusting... maybe that'll make her twice as smart..?

That's sad, hopefully the doctors will be able to do the surgery successfully without much damage.

Poor Edward
(Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan 1992)

Did you hear the news about Edward?
On the back of his head he had another face
Was it a woman's face or a young girl?
They said to remove it would kill him
So poor Edward was doomed

The face could laugh and cry
It was his devil twin
And at night she spoke to him
Things heard only in hell
But they were impossible to separate
Chained together for life

Finally the bell tolled his doom
He took a suite of rooms
And hung himself and her from the balcony irons
Some still believe he was freed from her
But I knew her too well
I say she drove him to suicide
And took poor Edward to hell

that is really sad :(

and it brings up a couple questions in my mind...

1. would say, ultrasound find such a 'defect', and if so, perhaps in an ideal world, such procedures should be more avail to al?

2. if ultrasound would have revealed it, then what? complete the pregnancy or not?

[edit]No pictures of children allowed[/edit]

Wow, thats pretty bad. I hope that the operation goes well.

I should know better.

Here's a link to a bigger story with pictures of the poor kid.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...E23289,00.html

That is really gross.

Ahahaha, I was thinking the same thing.

Imagine what the mother felt like giving birth to her child. They probably took it away immediately. The doctor's must have been in shock, I'm sure they don't see that every day.

Still, as terrible as it is, things like this are bound to happen (and if you do some research abnormalities like this have been around for as long as science could record them).

Of course, you always hope it doesn't happen to your family (well, you probably don't even think about it since it's so rare).

At least they all still love the baby (see the pics).

I was thinking the same thing, except in a sealab 2021 or bad batman cartoon type of context. Sorry.

That is weird as fuck. I hope she is ok. Must be a dodgy as fuck operation do have done. Surely the ultrasound would have picked that up. May have been at a late stage though.

Whoa, i can see myself having freaky dreams tonight... i mean this morning, even.

Hmm...
Talking baby: "Mouhaha i have extreme brain powa"
*harnesses the ultimate powers of the force*

Maybe something along those lines. You can fight the sleep but not the dream.

"Doctors remove babies second head"

http://www.cnn.com/2004/HEALTH/02/07...ery/index.html

Seven-week-old Rebeca Martinez had been born with the head of what would have been her twin, attached to her own skull.

Surgeons removed the so-called "parasitic head," which had a partially formed brain and facial features, in a 12-hour procedure.

"It went great," said Dr. Benjamin Rivera, one of several neurosurgeons involved in the complex operation conducted at Santo Domingo's Center for Orthopedic Specialties.

But he conceded it was "was quite difficult," and said the next 24 to 48 hours will be critical because the child lost a lot of blood.

The operation began at midday Friday and ended near midnight local time.

A U.S.-based charity that funds the orthopedic center and gives medical care to disabled children in developing countries, CURE International, is paying an estimated $100,000 for the operation.

Doctors had expected significant blood loss during the procedure.

Separating the blood vessel was challenging since they were intertwined, said Dr. Santiago Hazim, medical director of the hospital.

To prepare for the operation, doctors saved nearly four gallons of Rebecca's O-positive blood -- enough to transfuse her entire blood volume five times.

In addition to separating the undeveloped head, doctors repaired a portion of Rebeca's skull.

Doctors had expected the surgery to be easier than recently publicized cases of conjoined twins.

In those cases, doctors were attempting to save two lives. In this procedure, doctors focused only on Rebeca.

The second head will likely be sent to pathologists for a full examination.

Rebeca is expected to recover in a couple of weeks and develop as a normal girl.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/sto...F&SECTION=HOME

Poor thing passed away :(.

Wow amazing poem..

Infant dies after surgery to remove second head..
 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4194938/

"Infant dies after surgery to remove second head"

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 7-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.

The second head, which doctors said threatened the girl's development, grew from the top of her 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.

The surgery was complicated because the two heads shared 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.

Lazareff, who led a team that successfully separated conjoined Guatemalan twin girls in 2002, led the operation along with Dr. Benjamin Rivera, a neurosurgeon at the Medical Center of Santo Domingo and the orthopedic center.

Rebeca was born on Dec. 17 with the undeveloped head of her twin, a condition known as craniopagus parasiticus. Twins born conjoined at the head are extremely rare, accounting for one of every 2.5 million births.

Parasitic twins like Rebeca are even rarer. Rebeca was the eighth documented case in the world of craniopagus parasiticus, Hazim said. All the other documented infants died before birth, making it the first known surgery of its kind, according to Lazareff and the other doctors.

Martinez, a tailor, and his wife, who is a supermarket cashier, together make about $200 a month and have two other children, aged 4 and 1.

They say doctors told them Rebeca would be born with a tumor on her head but that none of the prenatal tests showed a second head.

Yeah, I was going to post that... she didn't make it through her surgery, which is very sad. :( The poor parents are probably devastated, and I can only imagine what they're going through right now.

So the surgery didn't work? I had a feeling it wouldn't..

That is very sad...

How sad :(

:( :( :( :( :(

Ah, crappy. I had just read that it was almost done and looking good.

Well surgery isn't perfect....it's not like doctors do that thing everyday....at least they gave it a good effort.

No. If I understand this correctly, she wouldn't have lived if they didn't get the parasitic twin off. She was doomed either way, but maybe they could have succeeded.... so they tried and failed.

Maybe next time, they'll do better. That's the idea, anyway. 'Course, "next time" might be... quite a while from now.

I just lost my appetite :vomit:

Aww, that's too bad, I was hoping that he would make it. I give my best to the parents...I hope they're doing ok...:(

i dont understand how u can even be born with 2 heads... i think i should get out of chem and take biology instead