Siamese Twins Await Risky Separation Surgery

Siamese twins born in Wenzhou of Zhejiang Province with two hearts, two livers, two bladders and four kidneys but one set of intestines are awaiting separation surgery.

The twin girls, surnamed Huang, were born on May 28. They are connected abdominally. Their intestines may be inadequate, and they have a serious reproductive system deformity.

To find the best possible surgery, the Zhejiang Children's Hospital in Hangzhou put information about the twins on the Internet for help.

The hospital received more than 50 e-mails from other hospitals and institutions. Offers for help came from Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Taiwan and the Chinese mainland.

But what to do has not been decided yet. The type and date of surgery depend on the health of the twins, hospital official Zhang Weifang said.

Surgery would start when the babies weigh more than 6 kilograms, enough to reduce certain risks, said Tang Daxing, a doctor from the hospital.

The babies live in a special care ward because they are weaker than other babies of the same age, the hospital's head nurse said.

The babies together weigh 4.5 kilograms, 0.7 kilograms heavier than they did one month ago, while a normal one-month old baby weighs at least 3 kilograms.

"We have designed a special diet for them to improve their health," the head nurse said.

The hospital has spent more than 30,000 yuan (US$3,627) on the babies over the past month and decided to give them free surgery and nursing.

Doctors are still struggling to find out why the babies were born attached, the head nurse said. The reasons relate to the parents's genes, any viral infections, and the mother's health during pregnancy. The babies' parents are farmers in their twenties from Rui'an county in the Wenzhou area.

Siamese twins are rare, and surgery success rates are low, with most babies dying shortly after operations.

However, surgery is a must.

The Hangzhou hospital did surgery on Siamese twins 20 years ago but failed. The two babies died one day later.

Since a US team met success in 1967, Chinese doctors have done the same four times since then.

The parents of Dingding and Diandian, China's first successful separation of Siamese twins, said they hoped the Huang sisters become the fifth successful case.





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