A woman has given birth to a pair of boys who are fused at the abdomen, have two healthy sets of limbs but share one heart.
Shahin Khan, 26, was admitted to Sion Hospital in Mumbai, India, where she gave birth to the twins in the seventh month of her pregnancy on Wednesday morning.
The
new-borns weighing 4.5 kg have two separate heads and neck but are
joined from the thorax - the part from the neck to abdomen.
While
doctors at the hospital have delivered several conjoined twins in the
past, the latest twins are unusual in sharing one heart and neck -
making it harder to separate them.
Dr Suleiman Merchant, the dean of the hospital , said: “These conjoined twins have a very complex internal architecture.
"While
they have two separate heads and necks, they are joint from the thorax,
that is the part between the neck and the abdomen, and so are
completely fused below the umbilicus level.”
Shahin and her husband Irshand Khan, 27, a cobbler, are already parents of two daughters.
And while she had never undergone an ultrasound to check the status
of the foetus, she only knew she was carrying conjoined twins a week
before her delivery when she visited the hospital for a check-up.
"We realised she was carrying conjoined twins right away and asked her to stay in the hospital. She went home only briefly.
She returned a week back and we carried out a planned Caesarean section," Dr Suleiman added.
The hospital has prepared a team of doctors to carry out a possible surgery to separate the infants.
Dr
Paras Kothari, the Head of Paediatric Surgery at the hospital, said:
"As they share one heart, it isn't going to be an easy decision to make
for the parents.
"But without a surgery none of them would
survive. A hospital ethics committee will first discuss the surgery and
its possible outcome before counselling the parents,” he said.
