It was reported that the conjoined twins who were born at a hospital in Ciudad Juarez have died before starting the treatment to separate them. The baby boys had independent heads and brains, but they shared body and organs.
After a traumatic birth on January 6, the Mexican twins died on January 9. The death was confirmed by Jesus Urrutia, the director of clinic 35 at the Mexican Institute of Social Security of the state of Chihuahua, in north-central Mexico. The mother of the recently passed twins is stable. However, the authorities refused to give more comments or information to protect the relatives. Conjoined twins occur once in about every 200,000 live births. However, their chances of surviving are quite low.
They shared organs from the neck down
State officials in Chihuahua, Mexico, confirmed that the baby with two heads died on Monday, even when it was said they were in a stable condition. A video of them was uploaded to the social networks by their relatives. In the video, they had tubes leading to their noses, one of them was crying while the other seemed to be upset.
It also shows that they shared the same body. The babies were male. It was confirmed that the mother is okay and in a stable condition. However, authorities did not release the mother’s name or whether parents were aware of the condition of the conjoined twins before they were born.
The boys were born in Ciudad Juarez, but they died before the doctors could attempt to separate them. According to authorities, they were making a plan to do so. Their internal organ and their skin were fused. However, they had separated heads and brains.
The overall survival rate of conjoined twins goes from 5 to 25 percent
Conjoined Twins are born once every 200,000 live births, 40 to 60 percent of these twins are born alive. However, only 35 percent manage to survive 24 hours. According to the University of Maryland Center, the overall survival rate of conjoined twins is low, ranging between 5 to 25 percent. Most of the live births are female. As well, it was reported that female siblings have a greater chance of survival than male siblings do. 70 percent of all living conjoined twins are girls.
Conjoined twins develop when a woman produces a single egg, and it does not separate completely after fertilization. Therefore, the embryo begins to split into identical twins during the first weeks of pregnancy, but the separation of the twins is never completed, meaning that the egg develops as a conjoined fetus.
There is another theory that states that the fertilized egg is indeed separated, but stem cells find other similar cells in the other twin, and therefore they fuse them together. Conjoined twins are identical twins and sometimes they are called Siamese twins. Their incidence is higher in Southeast Asia and in Africa. The characteristics of Conjoined twins may vary; however, they tend to share chorion, placenta, and the amniotic sac.
There are not specific symptoms that can tell if a mother is carrying conjoined twins. They often show greater signs of fatigue and nausea. It is always better to confirm it by a standard ultrasound.
Today with all the technological advances made in the field of medicine, parents have the option to separate their conjoined twins. However, doctors warn that this is a very risky procedure still. Last year, a pair of 13-month old craniopagus twins – meaning that they had their heads united – were successfully separated at a New York children’s hospital.
Separating twins with this conditions can indeed offer them the chances of living a healthy life, but in most cases, at least one of them dies. Therefore some parents chose to let them conjoined because of fear of failed surgeries. Brit and Abby Hensel are a case of conjoined twins that remained together. They are from Mexico, and they were born in 1990 sharing the same body with separate heads, just as recently passed babies. The girls learned how to live with one another. They can drive, swim and even run.
Another case of conjoined twins is Patrick and Benjamin Binder. They were the first successfully separated conjoined twins, back in 1987. They were united at the head. Their procedure was made by a team of doctors led by 2016 U.S presidential candidate Ben Carson.
Among the most famous cases of conjoined twins is the one of Eng and Chang Bunker. They were born in 1811 in Thailand. They were joined at the lower chest, and their livers were connected. They joined a circus and exhibited around the world. They were called “siam” at the circus. After that, they spent their remaining years in North Carolina where they had about two dozen children after they married two sisters. They were successful businessmen and ranchers before dying in 1874 at age 63.
Source: Tech Times