Surgeons at Pakistan's National Institute of Child Health (NICH) have successfully removed the extra four limbs of a baby boy born with six legs. The operation lasted about two hours and the infant was in stable condition, doctors said Thursday.

“A team of five experienced doctors have successfully separated the extra legs and limbs from the baby today. He is very much safe and secure,” Jamal Raza, the director of NICH, said in Karachi.

The baby was born at the end of his parents' four-year wait for a child. His parents, based in Sukkur, say they are much relieved after the operation and are grateful for the aid. “We are a poor family. I am thankful to the government for helping us treating my baby,” the baby’s father Imran Shaikh said, Huffington Post reported, citing local media.

According to a local daily report, the new-born was believed to have had a parasitic twin, who had not developed completely, resulting in the extra limbs.

''It is not one baby actually. They are two, one of them is premature,” Raza said, adding that “In every 10,000 child births one baby is born with an abnormality such as a hole in the heart.”

“Then there is a possibility that several eggs were fertilized instead of one,” she explained. However, the doctors were stunned to see that “apparently an abnormal baby with six legs was as normal as other children.”

She also said that the condition was the result of a genetic disease which would affect only one in a million or more babies, Huffington Post reported.

The baby, who was born a week ago in Sukkur, was brought to Karachi on Monday for treatment.

Baby Born with Six Legs Image Taken Before the Operation
A newly-born child, who has six legs, rests on his grandmother's lap at his family home in Sukkur in Pakistan's Sindh province April 14, 2012. Reuters
Image Taken Before the Operation
A woman holds her newly-born grandson, who has six legs, for a photograph at her home in Sukkur in Pakistan's Sindh province on April 14, 2012. Reuters