Wow! See the pretty faces of these lil cuties...lols!
Nigeria’s conjoined twins Hassana and Hussaina
Badaru(pictured) have been declared healthy and happy by doctors after they
were successfully separated in a marathon “nerve-wracking” operation in India
by a team of 40 specialists.
The one-year-old girls, sporting matching bright pink
dresses, sat patiently on their parents’ laps as doctors explained the
separation last month during an 18-hour operation at a New Delhi hospital.
“They were fused at their back when they came to us which is
very rare,” paediatric surgeon Prashant Jain told AFP. “Usually the twins are
joined in the head or the upper body. It posed a huge challenge to our team of
doctors,” Jain said.
Doctors held the media conference as the twins sat happily,
grabbing at a mobile phone, clutching a rattle and trying to pull off their
mother’s earrings.
Malama Badariyya Badaru, the mother of the twins, said she
was overjoyed at finally being able to hold the girls in her arms
“individually”.
The girls, sporting hair bands of different colours to make
recognition easier, looked curiously at the cameras during the conference at
the BLK Super Speciality hospital.
“It was all nerve-wracking work. But it feels great to see
them happy, healthy and independent,” Jain said.
The single surgery was carried out in three stages,
preparation, separation and then reconstruction of their shared organs which
include the lower spine, lower intestinal and urinary tracts as well as
genitals.
“We carried out rehearsals using dummies. All tubes, wires,
injections and drugs were colour-coded in pink or blue (for each girl) to avoid
any mistake,” he said.
Jain said only 15 percent of all conjoined twins are born
with this type of condition, known medically as pygopagus. Medical literature
lists just 32 such cases, he said.
The family, from Kano state in northwestern Nigeria, were
told by doctors in their country that one of the girls may not survive if they
went ahead with the surgery there.
An unnamed philanthropist then stepped in to help, and
suggested they travel to India which offered good facilities at relatively low
medical costs, Jain said.
The family can head home to Nigeria after a series of
month-long check ups, he said.
Advantages for medical treatment in India include reduced costs, the availability of latest medical technologies, and a growing compliance on international quality standards, as well as the fact that foreigners are less likely to face a language barrier in India.
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