Sweet Moment Conjoined Twins See Each Other for the 1st Time After Being Separated

Sweet Moment Conjoined Twins See Each Other for the 1st Time After Being Separated

  • Twin girls were born conjoined at the back of the head and thus couldn't face each other
  • After a 12-hour operation at the Soroka University Medical Center in Beer Sheva doctors separated the two
  • this was a first of a kind surgery in the whole of Israel

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It was a surreal moment for 12-month-old conjoined twin girls when they finally got to see each other for the first time since birth.

Soroka University Medical Center, conjoined twins, separated
Soroka University Medical Center, where conjoined twins were successfully separated. Photo: Soroka University Medical Center
Source: UGC

According to a report by NBC News, the twins were born conjoined at the back of the head. Such surgeries are so rare, only 20 of those have been performed in the world. So for Israel, it was a first.

12-hour surgery

After 12-hour surgery, the surgery was successful, and the twin girls could face each other for the first time.

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“Whenever you have two babies attached together with their brains and the vessels supplying the brains, it makes it even more complex and impossible for us neurosurgeons to expect and to know how to deal with it,” Mickey Gideon, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Soroka Medical Center who led the surgery, told NBC News.

The twin girls, whose names were not revealed, were among the youngest twins ever to be separated.

Gideon said he wanted to perform the surgery before the age of one, an important developmental year.The girls are now recovering well, and they are neurologically sound .

“Cognitively we can’t estimate yet. We have to wait and examine them and see what happens.” said Gideon.

The two girls were placed in the same crib after the surgery, where they got to interact facing each other since birth.

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Conjoined twins separated in Nigeria

Elsewhere, Briefly News reported that a 78-member team of doctors successfully separated conjoined twins at the National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria.

The widely applauded surgery, which lasted about 13 hours, was carried out in November 2019. The twins were born on Tuesday, August 13, 2018.

The head of the team that performed the surgery, Emmanuel Ameh, said the two were doing well and ready to be discharged from the hospital six weeks after the operation.

Source: Briefly News

Authors:
Kelly Lippke avatar

Kelly Lippke (Senior Editor) Kelly Lippke is a copy editor/proofreader who started her career at the Northern-Natal Courier with a BA in Communication Science/Psychology (Unisa, 2007). Kelly has worked for several Caxton publications, including the Highway Mail and Northglen News. Kelly’s unique editing perspective stems from an additional major in Linguistics. Kelly joined Briefly News in 2018 and she has 14 years of experience. Kelly has also passed a set of trainings by Google News Initiative. You can reach her at kelly.lippke@briefly.co.za.