GUATEMALA: DOCTORS STRUGGLE TO SAVE LIVES OF CONJOINED GIRL TWINS BORN TO GUATEMALAN TEENAGER

Record ID: 646795

  • Title: GUATEMALA: DOCTORS STRUGGLE TO SAVE LIVES OF CONJOINED GIRL TWINS BORN TO GUATEMALAN TEENAGER
  • Date: 16th July 2002
  • Summary: (U7) GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA (JULY 16, 2002) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV BABIES AT BIRTH BEING HELD BY NURSES 0.14 2. SMV BABY MONITOR PAN TO BABIES LYING IN INCUBATOR 0.25 3. SCU NURSES/ MEDICAL STAFF LOOKING AT BABIES 0.30 4. SMV PAN OF INTENSIVE NURSERY WARD IN HOSPITAL WITH BABIES ON BEDS ATTACHED TO MEDICAL EQUIPMENT 0.39 5. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) HOSPITAL DIRECTOR ELIAS JOEL ZAMBIAN, SAYING: "In this case, this was the simultaneous formation of two beings, in this case girls, who for some reason did not separate." 0.52 6. SCU /PAN OF X-RAY OF BABIES WITH DOCTOR POINTING TO BABIES SPINES FUSED TOGETHER 1.09 7. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) MATERNITY WARD SUPERVISOR ANA SILVIA JOMAN, SAYING: "Twins can be from the same or different ova (eggs). When they're from the same egg, then they're identical twins. When the ovum does not finish separating, as it started to in its divisions, they remain united like this. This is what occurred here and so they're partly united." 1.27 8. SCU FACES OF CONJOINED TWINS 1.32 9. WIDE OF NURSES TENDING TO BABIES 1.43 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 31st July 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: GUATEMALA CITY, GUATEMALA
  • Country: Guatemala
  • Reuters ID: LVA2K0K5XWRJ3A9TH9M5ULL8HMHM
  • Story Text: Guatemalan doctors have been struggling to save
    conjoined twins born to a teenager in Guatemala City.



    The baby girls were born Friday (July 12) to 15
    year-old Wendy Sosa. The newborns have only one body but two
    heads and are currently being closely guarded at Roosevelt
    Hospital in Guatemala City.

    The girls, who are conjoined at the thorax and abdomen,
    share a heart, pancreas, liver and one and a half lungs. They
    cannot be successfully separated.

    The birth comes on the heels of a similar case in which a
    set of twins conjoined at the head, are currently awaiting
    separation at the University of California Medical Center in
    Los Angeles. The twins, also Guatemalan girls, are expected to
    have their surgery in late July.

    Conjoined twins date back centuries and have usually led
    short lives of fear and isolation. They form when the
    developing embryo begins to split into identical twins, but
    then stops part way leaving the partially separated egg to
    mature into a conjoined fetus, as maternity ward supervisor
    Ana Silvia Joman explained.

    "Twins can be from the same or different ova (eggs)," said
    Joman. "When they're from the same egg, then they're identical
    twins. When the ovum does not finish separating, as it started
    to in its divisions, they remain united like this."
    Doctors speculate that a genetic or environmental factor
    stops the separation process around the 13th day into the
    pregnancy. In the most common form of conjoining,
    thoracopagus. The twins are connected from the breast bone to
    the navel.

    Conjoined twins have an incidence of about one out of
    every 200,000 births and one in every 40,000 live births.

    They are more often girls, by about three to one and about 75
    percent of conjoined twins are stillborn or die within 24
    hours.


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