Conjoined South African twin girls separated
Twin 14-month-old girls in South Africa joined at the head were separated in a 16-hour operation, one of their doctors said today.
Danielle and Danika Lowton lay apart for the first time since their birth at about 8:45pm (1845 GMT) on Friday, a statement from the Arwyp Medical Centre, a private hospital in Kempton Park, near Johannesburg, said. They were in critical but stable condition today.
“The twins have been successfully separated and have survived their ordeal,” said spokesman Dr Henry du Plooy. “We are very grateful that they are doing well. We feel blessed that the operation ran smoothly.”
The twins, who were born at the hospital on June 21, 2006, will remain in a neonatal intensive care unit under constant monitoring.
“The next couple of days are critical to see how they respond to being separated,” Du Plooy said. “But depending how it goes, in a week or two we could see them going home.”
He said the little girls, whose development had not being affected by their condition, were joined on the left side of their heads, looking away from each other.
“They have never seen each other,” he said.
Du Plooy said that the operation, which entailed complex neurosurgical and reconstructive procedures, was conducted by four neurosurgeons, four plastic surgeons and six anaesthetists.
He said one in 2.5 million births had a chance of being conjoined twins and of those only four per cent were joined at the head.
The hospital said in an earlier statement that only four operations to separate conjoined twins have ever been carried out in South Africa and this was the first to be performed at a private hospital.
