'Mermaid' Baby Surgery A Success

Peruvian Baby Girl's Operation Went Far Better Than Expected

(AP)  The 11 doctors who performed the operation included plastic surgeons, pediatricians and heart specialists.

Rubio said the medical team decided to operate at night because the doctors wanted to perform the surgery when Solidarity Hospital, a public facility that serves 1,500 people daily, would be at its quietest.

Milagros weighs 14.75 pounds and is 25 inches long, about the size and weight of a normal 6-month-old.

Rubio said Milagros had suffered frequent urinary infections because her urinary tract, anus and genitals end in the same opening.

But her intellectual development has been remarkable, he said, as Milagros smiled, trying to grab a laser light Rubio used to show how her legs were connected by the same sheath of skin.

"She has extraordinary psycho-mental development. She communicates well with her surroundings. She babbles words that correspond to her age," he said, picking up Milagros and holding her over his head as she giggled.

In the last three months, doctors have inserted silicone bags filled with saline solution to stretch the skin so it will be able to cover her legs once they are cut apart.

Milagros has a deformed left kidney and a very small right one located very low in her body.

Rubio said Milagros would need up to 15 years of corrective surgeries to reconstruct and repair her sexual, digestive and other internal organs.

Her father made an eight-hour bus ride to Lima from a village high in the Andes to get Milagros help shortly after she was born on April 27, 2004.

"I'm a bit excited and also a little pained because of what my daughter is going through," Ricardo Cerron told The Associated Press on Tuesday, only hours before the operation. "But I have faith in the doctors. I have faith in God. I am putting everything in God's hands."