Another set of conjoined twins is in the news. This time, the twins are girls who were connected to each other by their heads. The girls have undergone a surgical separation, and appear to be doing quite well. This means that two of the three sets of conjoined twins that have been in the news lately have been separated, and can go on to live a normal life.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the overall survival rate for conjoined twins (of any type) is around 25%. Only around one out of every 50,000 pregnancies result in conjoined twins. Only around 1 in every 250,000 sets of conjoined twins make it to a live birth.
Recently, a twenty-one year old single mother named Amanda Schulten gave birth to conjoined twin daughters who are named Hope and Faith. The girls cannot be surgically separated from each other, because of the way they are connected, and also because of the way the girl’s bodies developed.
Hope and Faith are connected at the torso. The girls share a heart, two lungs, two kidneys, and two legs. One of the girls did not develop a lower body. Each girl has one good arm. One of the girls has another half an arm. The girls are not conjoined at their heads. They are being cared for at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and their outlook has been described as “bleak”.
Another single mother, twenty-eight year old Adrienne Spates, recently gave birth to conjoined twin boys named Joshua and Jacob Spates. The boys were conjoined at the lower spine and pelvis. Doctors at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital were able to surgically separate the brothers, a procedure that took thirteen hours. This required the doctors to detach the spinal cord and column, some muscles, and some other tissues. It has been said that the boys are doing well, and have been able to see each other for the first time.
Surprisingly, there is another set of conjoined twins in the news. Rital and Ritag Gaboura are sisters who were connected to each other at their heads. This means that they were craniopagus twins. This type of conjoined twin only occurs in around one in 2.5 million births.
The girls are from the country of Sudan. A charity called Facing the World, (which helps children who are disfigured), helped provide funding so that the girls could have a series of operations that would separate them from each other. The final surgery took place in August of 2011, at the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
First, the girls had two operations in May of 2011. In June, they had tissue expanders inserted. The doctors noted that there was significant blood flow between the brains of the two girls, which can make the surgery even more challenging. The girls have now been successfully separated, and are doing well.
Image by s2art on Flickr