Baby has extra limbs removed after being born with four hands and four feet in Chinese hospital

Child is in a stable condition at a hospital in China's Guangdong province

The 13-day-old boy was born joined to a headless parasitic twin

They weighed just over 3kg before surgery, doctors said

Doctors have successfully removed a baby's extra limbs after it was born with four hands and four feet.

The child is now in a stable condition at a hospital in China's southern Guangdong province four days after the surgery.

The 13-day-old boy, from Huizhou, was born joined to a headless parasitic twin joined at the torso on April 2. That has now been removed.

Doctors at a hospital in Huizhou city, in China's Guangdong province, released this picture of the baby with four hands and four feet before surgery

Yu Jiakang, chief surgeon at Guangzhou Women and Children's Medical Center said: 'They were supposed to be twins, but one had underdeveloped and became deformed.'

The conjoined twins weighed just over 3kg before surgery, with the removed parasitic fetus weighing 0.6kg.

According to the Global Times, the baby was diagnosed with pneumonia and congenital heart disease, which is a common among children in China, before surgery.

His father, named only as Mr Chen, said he had taken son to many hospitals near his home but none have been able to give him reasons for the deformity.

Before surgery: The conjoined twins weighed just over 3kg before surgery

HOW PARASITIC TWINS FORM

Identical twins form when a single egg splits during fertilisation - as opposed to two eggs both being fertilised.

Conjoined twins form when a split egg fails to fully separate. A ‘parasite’ conjoined twin can survive but not when one absorbs the other.

In 2012 surgeons in Peru operated on a three year old boy to remove a 9in-long parasitic twin weighing a pound and a half.

In 2008 doctors had to remove a 2in embryo from the body of a nine-year-old girl in Greece.

The brain, lungs and heart are some of the last parts of the body to develop. Removing a parasitic twin is usually easier than attempting to separate conjoined twins.

Mr Chen said he blamed himself for not taking good care of his wife and son during pregnancy.

'I only cared about my work. I just thought of making money instead of taking her to hospital for a medical checkup.'

In August last year it was revealed an eight-month-old baby who grew a second 'head' had undergone surgery to have it removed.

Doctors in India said the second head was a 'parasitic twin', weighed almost a kilo and had brain tissue within it.

The child, known as Tofajjal, was suffering from a rare disease called encephalomeningocele, said to affect one in 40,000 to 45,000 babies.

A similar case happened with a baby in Pakistan two years ago.

A doctor at the National Institute of Child Health in Karachi said that the abnormal birth was the result of a genetic disease which affects only one in a million or so babies.