(Gather.com) Panama had its second set of conjoined twins in just over a year. Twin girls were born on Saturday, and they share a heart. The girls are attached at their abdomen, and they are in an incredibly difficult situation.
Not only do the conjoined twins share a heart, that heart is also abnormal. According to doctors in Panama the conjoined twins have structural abnormalities in their heart and they also share a pancreas and liver. This makes their situation complex and dangerous.
Doctors are cautious about the girls’ prognosis because the surgeries to separate them are difficult. Also, sharing a heart makes it especially unusual. In the last case of conjoined twins in Panama, one of them died during the surgery to separate them.
Conjoined twins are always identical, and they occur in one in every 50,000 to 100,000 live births. Unfortunately the survival rate for conjoined twins is about 25%, so these girls are fighting for their lives from the very beginning. For some reason, conjoined twins are more likely to be female than males. These girls and their family as well as their doctors have a difficult road ahead. Hopefully it will go as smoothly as possible, and they will have long and happy lives. It has to be an incredibly stressful situation for the parents of these girls to be in. Hopefully they will be able to make the right decisions in the coming days and months. It is going to be very hard.
© Copyright: News Today Online by Kate James at Gather.com