Conjoined Twins Healthy but Face Uncertain Future

The conjoined twin girls, named Krista and Tatiana, joined at the head, are doing well after birth at Vancouver. Doctors say that they will wait for the girl’s organs to become more mature and stable before conducting any kind of medical scans on them.

This effectively means that it could be three or four months before it will be known whether the twins can be separated or not.

Conjoined twins are twins whose bodies are joined together at birth. This happens where the zygote of identical twins fails to completely separate. Conjoined twins occur in an estimated one in 200,000 births. The overall survival rate for conjoined twins is between 5% and 25%.

Krishta and Tatiana were born to 21 year old Felicia Simms when a team of doctors performed a caesarian section on her. The twins, born several weeks premature, had a combined weight of 5,760 grams (12.7 pounds) and are of equal size and length. Their heads are fused at the back and the side, and they have two separate brain stems, but share two brain lobes.

Dr. Doug Cochrane, the pediatric neurosurgeon said that the babies share a unique bond. He told that if the legs of one baby was tickled, the other baby’s legs reponded. Likewise if one cried, a soother in the mouth of the other settled both. He described the babies as wiggly, vigorous and very vocal at birth. He also informed that they are breathing without medical assistance and appear healthy.

Meanwhile, Simms is recuperating at the B.C. Women's Hospital's where she delivered the girls. Doctors claim that she is fatigued, but overall doing very well. The doctors are happy that there was not much blood loss during the caesarian section.

Doctors said that the most challenging cases in separation occurred when babies joined with fusions at the head were operated upon. Thus, separation may not be feasible in this particular case.

The family of the twins must be going through mixed emotions. On one hand there is the joy of a birth in the family, on the other hand is the anxiety of having disabled children and their future.