The shocking pictures showed Siamese twins born with a single face in India. Each of the babies had their own heart, legs and arms. They weighed 2lbs and 6oz in the Gujarat, eastern India.
Doctors have confirmed that the conjoined twins lived for a period of six minutes only after being born on Friday at Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Government Medical College.
Though, it was already known that the babies were conjoined, the medics were still astonished to see them when the twins were born with one head. The babies were delivered through a Caesarean section.
The assistant professor of the gynecology ward at the hospital, Dr. Kirtan Vyas said that the medics had an idea that it would be very difficult for the twins to survive.
He further said that the reason they anticipated this tragedy was that the babies had a fused brain and a surgery to separate it in not possible.
The family had been told in advance that there would be very severe complications. Dr. Vyas also said that this is a very rare case that happens, perhaps, once in a million.
The hospital has been in operation for the past 14 decades but in all these years, there have only been three or four cases of conjoined babies. However, this case was more astonishing because such twins are very rare.
The mother of the babies, whose name has not been revealed, had a normal pregnancy until she went through her first ultrasound. It was then that she received the news about her babies. Hospital authorities think that they were cephalopagus Siamese twins meaning that their heads were not separate.
Dr Vyas further added that this condition is usually diagnosed during the first trimester of pregnancy but the mother had not gone through any checkups. This is not unusual in India where regular checkups cannot be carried out due to monetary constraints.
The mother of the twins has been discharged from the hospital and is said to be fine. The tragic incident resembles another incident that happened in India in 2014 in which a baby was born with two heads.
