Growing Your Baby - Parenthood from Pregnancy to Pre-school » Conjoined Twins

Doctors Separate Abandoned Conjoined Twins

Lisa — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:00:24 +0000

A pair of conjoined twins that were found abandoned under a bush with their date of birth written on a slip of paper, have been successfully separated.

The babies underwent a four-hour operation to be separated on March 10th. Their individual weights have risen to 4lbs 6oz and 4lbs 1oz respectively, which is considerably more than the 6lbs they weighed together when they were found.

The twins, who had merged blood vessels, liver and chest bones, are also the youngest pair of conjoined twins who had been successfully separated in the Chinese city.

Hospital staff believes that concern over heavy medical expenses caused their parents to abandon them outside the hospital just eight days after they were born.

They held a press conference on Wednesday and urged the parents of the twins to come forward.

Even though the fees to operate on the babies has now exceeded 100,000 yuan ($22,000), the hospital says that the parents will not have to pay.

Future operations will also be waived They include heart surgery for both and cleft palate surgery for one.

Because the babies were so small, the hospital paid extra for their surgeries.

Hospital officials said that the surgeons practised operating on rabbits at least three times before they dared to perform the surgery and the operation was divided into two parts.

The boys were separated at their abdomen and liver before their chest bones.

The operation was risky because the babies had no more than 240cc of blood in total, and a blood loss of 10 per cent or just 24cc, could have placed their lives in danger.

The good news is that the surgery was a resounding success and the babies are currently healthy and recovering well.

I personally hope these parents don’t come back for them. They need parents that are going to love them regardless of their condition.

I just wonder how this moms delivered conjoined twins without anyone knowing? There would be no way that two heads could pass through the birth canal simultaneously.

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Team of 70 Successfully Separates Conjoined Egyptian Twins

Lisa — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 20:46:56 +0000

A team of 70 medical personnel led by Saudi Arabia’s minister of health successfully separated conjoined Egyptian twins on Saturday at a Riyadh hospital, doctors said.

Nine-month-old Hassan and Mahmoud, who were born joined at the abdomen, were separated after nine hours of surgery, Saud al-Jadaan, one of the team’s doctors at King Abdulaziz Medical City, told AFP.

The boys were in separate rooms in the hospital’s pediatric intensive care unit as doctors worked to reconstruct the body parts the twins had shared, including bowel, urinary tract and sexual organs.

This was being done to give the boys as much natural organ function as possible.

The operation, which could be seen live on the hospital’s website, was originally expected to take 15 hours but went more quickly than planned, hospital spokesman Sami al-Shalan said.

“We are three hours ahead of time,” he said, attributing that to the operating team’s experience. It was the 21st successful operation to separate conjoined twins at the facility.

The boys should be able to go home to Egypt in two months if there are no complications.

It is amazing to me that there were 70 people assisting with this operation because only 46 people participated in the recent octuplet delivery.

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Surgeons Successfully Separate Conjoined Twins in Phoenix

Lisa — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:39:52 +0000

After more than 12 hours of surgery, doctors at Phoenix Children’s Hospital have successfully separated conjoined twins.

Alex and Angel Mendoza were born last summer and were joined from just below their sternums all the way down through their pelvises.

A team of more than 20 doctors and nurses worked to give the boys separate bodies and the two were stable throughout the surgery.

More surgery is expected today as doctors do reconstruction procedures to close each baby’s body.

Ashley Frank of Kingman gave birth in mid-August to the twins at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix.

The babies were delivered two months early after doctors saw there wasn’t enough amniotic fluid supporting them.

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UK Mom Expecting Rare Conjoined Twins: 2 Heads, 1 Body

Lisa — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:22:16 +0000

A British woman plans to make history by becoming the nation’s first mother to give birth to Siamese twins with separate heads but only one body.

Lisa Chamberlain, 25, is determined to go through with the pregnancy despite medical advice that she should terminate the pregnancy.

She was told she was expecting the extremely rare set of twins during a routine scan and insists they are a miracle after years of trying for a child.

‘Some people might look at me and say “You’re going to give birth to a freak” but I don’t care because I feel blessed,’ she said.

‘To me, my twins are a gift from God and we’re determined to give them their chance of life.’

The babies have already been named Layla and Kelsey because the majority of Siamese twins are girls.

The couple are taking comfort from the example of Americans Abigail and Brittany Hensel who were born with separate heads but one body 18 years ago.

The pair, who share organs below the navel, have stunned the world by living virtually normal lives.

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Couple Looses Remaining Conjoined Twin

Lisa — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 21:28:14 +0000

I am sad to report that conjoined twin Faith Williams lost her fight yesterday, just 23 days after the death of her sister.

Faith and sister Hope were joined at the chest when they were born on 26 November. Hope died in an operation to separate them on 2 December.

Great Ormond Street Hospital said it was a sad but not unexpected outcome.

A hospital spokesman said: “We were always clear that Faith was very sick.

“She required the full range of skills of our intensive care staff, and underwent a number of further procedures. However, she succumbed to the complexities of her condition.”

Faith underwent surgery earlier this month to assist with her circulation.

A spokeswoman for the hospital said: “The aim was to ensure more blood flowed to her body and less through her lungs.”

When Faith and Hope were born they weighed 4.8kg (10.5lb). They were joined from the breastbone to the top of the navel and had a shared liver but separate hearts.

Hope did not survive because her lungs were too small to support her breathing.

Conjoined twins are rare and take place at the rate of about one in 400,000 live births.

Separating a pair involves an intricate operation and success is heavily dependent on which vital organs are shared.

Great Ormond Street, where the surgery on Faith and Hope was carried out, is the most experienced centre in Europe for separating conjoined twins.

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UK Teen Welcomes Conjoined Girls

Lisa — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 16:32:48 +0000

Laura Williams, 18, has become the youngest woman ever to give birth to Conjoined twins.

The babies, who arrived this morning by Cesarean section operation this morning, are named Faith and Hope.

Both girls are believed to be healthy, according to early reports.

Speaking exclusively to The Daily Mail on Sunday, Laura said:

‘It’s scary every day and it’s been the hardest decision of our lives, but if they’re meant to be in this world and if they’ve come this far, we’ve got to hope they’ll make it the rest of the way.

‘We called them Hope and Faith because I’m always hoping everything’s going to be all right and Mum says she’s got faith in it being all right.’

We wish this couple good luck with the babies.

18-Year-Old Mom To Welcome Conjoined Twins

Lisa — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:26:46 +0000

An 18-year-old British woman is set to make medical history as Britain’s youngest mother to conjoined twins.

Laura Williams is due to give birth this week to her baby girls, already named Faith and Hope.

Only about five per cent of conjoined twins survive the first 24 hours, but because they are joined at the front, doctors say the chances are good in this case. A team of doctors is on standby to ensure both babies survive.

Surgeons are also planning to separate the twins in a complex operation, which is usually done only if both babies have their own heart and spinal chord.

Doctors are set to transfer them from Birmingham’s Women’s Hospital to the city’s Children’s Hospital or Great Ormond Street Hospital in London for the risky procedure.

Conjoined twins are extremely rare — with just one in 200,000 births affected. They are identical twins whose bodies are joined in utero.

We wish this mom luck during her delivery and hope that the babies are healthy on arrival.

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Arizona Couple Welcomes Conjoined Twins

Lisa — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:23:29 +0000

An Arizona mom has given birth to conjoined twins, delivered eight weeks early by Caesarean section.

The babies, born Wednesday at Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center, are joined from the middle of the chest to the bottom of their torsos. Together, they weighed 8 pounds, 10 ounces.

“They are acting very normal for babies this age,” said Dr. Stuart Lacey, a pediatric surgeon with Phoenix Children’s Hospital who will treat the children for the foreseeable future.

“I’m excited and I’m terrified,” said the children’s 20-year-old mother, Ashley Frank. “I know it’s going to be crazy. But I know I will love them.”

The children’s father is Frank’s boyfriend, 40-year-old Johnny Mendoza – who said he’s “nervous and excited” about having twins.

Because of how the babies are fused together, their gender is not yet known doctors said.

If they are strong enough, the two will undergo the lengthy procedure to be separated within the next year.

“It will happen. It will be a complex separation,” Dr. Lacey said.

Conjoined twins are rare: fewer than one in 200,000 live births. They are identical twins whose bodies are joined in utero.

Two contradicting theories exist to explain the origins of conjoined twins. The older and most generally accepted theory is fission, in which the fertilized egg splits partially. The second theory is fusion, in which a fertilized egg completely separates, but stem cells (which search for similar cells) find like-stem cells on the other twin and fuse the twins together.

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Groundbreaking Conjoined Separation Successful

Lisa — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:30:00 +0000

Pantawan and Panwad Thiyenjai were separated in late February at Bangkok’s Siriraj hospital in a 12 hour operation that was a “world first”.

The twins, who had been joined for 8 months, were born with connected livers and hearts have been successfully separated in groundbreaking surgery. Before the operation the girls were connected from the top of their chests to the bottom of their abdomens.

The hospital delayed making an announcement about the procedure until doctors were sure that the girls had a good chance of survival.

Piyasakol Sakolsatayathorn, the dean of Siriraj’s medical science faculty, said: “From our research, there are no twins who were connected by their hearts and livers who survived.

“This is the first time in the world.”

The twins’ mother Usa Thiyenjai, 29 and from Thailand’s northern province of Phrae, said: “I pray and beg to Buddha to help my daughters. I intend to raise them as best as I can.”

She said she would not want to have any more children because she is afraid they too could be conjoined.

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Formerly Conjoined Twin Gets New Kidney From Mom

Lisa — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 20:03:00 +0000

Maliyah Herrin, 5, is in critical condition at Primary Children’s Medical Center after receiving her mother’s right kidney in an operation that took nearly seven hours Tuesday. Erin, her mother, is in fair condition.
The surgery team cheered when Erin Herrin’s kidney changed ownership and started producing urine just minutes after it was implanted in the little girl’s abdomen.

Al Hartmann, Associated Press

Erin Herrin kisses Maliyah before their surgeries as father Jake looks on Tuesday at Primary Children’s. Erin donated a kidney to Maliyah.

“It’s always exciting to see a kidney that has been taken from one individual basically come alive in another individual,” said transplant surgeon Dr. John Sorensen. “I never get tired of it.”

Maliyah and her twin sister, Kendra, were born joined at the abdomen. They shared several organs and a pelvis, as well as use of Kendra’s kidney until they were surgically separated in August. The decision on when to separate them and much of the reconstruction done during that operation were driven by knowledge that Maliyah would need a kidney transplant afterward. She has since been on dialysis three days a week.

“Looking back, it’s amazing how far we’ve come. We thought we’d never get to this point. We’re really through the big challenges,” said Jake Herrin after the transplant, which is expected to be the last major childhood surgery for either twin.

The entire transplant took nearly seven hours and was much less complex than doctors had feared it would be. There were no complications, said Sorensen and Dr. Rebecka Meyers, who was on Maliyah’s transplant team and who was coordinating surgeon during the 26-hour separation surgery last summer.

When the surgery transferring the kidney from his wife to his daughter was over, Jake Herrin thanked the surgical teams repeatedly for what he called “miracle after miracle.”

Monday, Maliyah had been excited and “bouncing off the walls” happy after her final dialysis session, Jake said. She told everyone she met she was getting a new kidney tomorrow.

Surgeons had also worried that space in Maliyah’s abdomen would be a problem, since the two girls had shared one abdomen only slightly larger than that of a normal child. Although it was tight, it was adequate, helped in part by the fact that the kidney Erin donated was slightly small for an adult kidney.

Erin will need to be in the hospital for a week and Maliyah will stay for the next two weeks or more. Doctors are optimistic that there will be a happy ending, but she’ll be closely watched for signs of infection and her lab values monitored as doctors adjust immuno-suppressant medications to see that she doesn’t have a severe kidney rejection episode.

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