Experts doing tests on conjoined twins

LIMPOPO MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba’s office has said that a team of medical specialists is still running tests in order to decide on the next course of action regarding the conjoined twins born last week.

“Psychologists have also been dispatched to offer psychological support to the mother of the new babies and her family, who did not know that the twins she was carrying were conjoined until birth. Both babies are clinically stable, not intubated and respiratory-wise coping for now,” her department said.

The department also requested the public to allow the medical teams to do their work, and also offer support to the family of the babies.

A 41-year-old mother delivered a set of twins through Caesarean section and until they arrived, neither mother nor doctors had any idea that the babies would be conjoined.

The department said the patient, whose name has not been released to the media yet, was a referral from a nearby local clinic.

She was diagnosed as having a normal twin pregnancy during antenatal clinic visits, and it was only during the birth that doctors discovered that the babies were joined at the chest and abdomen.

“The babies were successfully extracted without any difficulties and transferred to Mankweng Hospital for full and further assessment by both neonatologists and paediatric surgeons,” the department said.

Department spokesperson Neil Shikwambana, said both girls and their mother were fine. Conjoined twins are the result of an incomplete separation of the embryonic disk, and incidence is estimated in 1 of 250000 live births worldwide.

The rare incidence include thoraco-omphalopagus, which refers to two bodies fused from the upper chest to the lower chest. “These twins usually share a heart and may also share the liver or part of the digestive system,” says the World Health Organization.

Thoracopagus refers to two bodies fused from the upper chest to lower belly, mostly always involving the heart. With omphalopagus, according to the World Health Journal, unlike thoracopagus, the heart is never involved.

“However, the twins often share a liver, digestive system, diaphragm and other organs.“

Separations have been performed across the country, although survival of one or both was not guaranteed due to shared major organs, wherein one would either sacrifice this for the other. The co-dependency would not allow the other to live long even after one dies.