An Australian woman has given birth to conjoined twins who share the same body, skull and heart but have separate faces.
Renee Young gave birth to conjoined twins Faith and Hope at the Royals Children’s Hospital Randwick in Sydney, the Herald Sun reported.
The girls were born six days ago. Their faces on either side of the skull are identical.
Dr Glenn Gardener, a maternal foetal medicine specialist, said: “Having two bodies, where one heart is doing the job of pumping blood around both of them, would be much more dangerous because of the likelihood of heart failure.
“The physical structures in the chest are probably consistent with a single person, but how the neurology works and how the brain is connected – that is really hard to determine whether they will function normally.”
The disorder, known as diprosopus, happens when the embryo is unable to divide into two during the early stages of pregnancy.
Only 35 such cases have been detected across the world, A Current Affair reported.
Young and her partner Simon Howie already have seven children but decided to go to term even after learning of the twin’s condition.
“I went for my scheduled ultrasound appointment and then the sonographer there seen something was up and sent me straight back to my local GP and my local GP cut the news to us,” Young said.
The twins were now in the intensive care and their recovery has amazed even the doctors in the hospital, lifestyle website Womansday.com reported.
“They are breathing perfectly on their own and feeding. They even had their first bath last night,” the father of the twins said.
“I would say if I only get two days with the baby, at least I have some time with it,” the mother added.
“A little luck, a little bit of faith, a bit of hope, hopefully we’ll come out the other side, as long as they’re fighters and they keep fighting, everything will be okay.”
(via IB Times, Photos: Herald Sun)
