Like many toddlers around the world, two-year-old Milagros Cerron is taking her first tentative steps. However, her parents have more reason than most to be proud of their little daughter.
Milagros, whose name means "miracles" in Spanish, was born with a rare congenital defect known as sirenomelia, or "mermaid syndrome," which left her legs connected from the heels to her groin.
Watch video of her walking here
But just over two weeks after an operation to separate her legs she took her first unaided steps across the room.
A team of eight specialists in Peru successfully carried out a number of operations on the two-year-old girl, known as the "Little Mermaid", to fully separate her legs and enable her to walk unassisted.
Born with her legs fused to the ankles and her feet splayed, Milagros looked like one of the mythical mermaids before her operation.
In June 2005 doctors successfully performed risky surgery to separate her legs to above her knees.
The second operation was carried out to separate the remaining fused tissue just below the groin.
Surgeon Luis Rubio who led the specialists, said after the surgery: "There were no problems...no complications from anaethesia or from haemorraghing."
"I expect to be walking the streets of Lima holding her hand in December, which would be a Christmas gift for her family."
He said Milagros, affectionately called "the little mermaid" by Peruvians, had developed the ability to stand alone without help and take small assisted steps.
Wearing a red headband, red pants and a red T-shirt, she took shuffling steps holding onto Rubio's hand and blew kisses to photographers.
Rubio has said Tiffany Yorks, a 17-year-old American, was the only other person known to have undergone successful surgery to correct the rare congenital defect, which occurs in one out of every 70,000 births and is almost always fatal within days of birth.
The surgeon calculates Milagros will need at least 16 more operations in the next 10 years to reconstruct and repair her digestive, urinary and sexual organs.
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