Life as a Conjoined Twins?

 

I don’t know about you, but i’ve always wanted a twin sibling, it would be so chaotic but also fascinating having someone that looks exactly like you. The bond between twins is a unique one on so many levels, being born together and having the same milestones is something that most of us cannot relate to. What about conjoined twins? Imagine having another human joined to you!

Conjoined twins are 2 babies who are born physically connected to each other. They develop when an early embryo only partially separates to form 2 individuals. Although 2 fetuses will develop from this embryo, they will remain physically connected - most often at the chest, abdomen or pelvis. Conjoined twins may also share one or more internal organs. Just like typical conjoined twins experience an extreme type of special bond.

 The specific anatomy of each pair of conjoined twins is unique, they may be joined at any of these sites:

Chest (Thoracopagus) - twins are joined face to face at the chest. They often have a shared heart and may also share one liver and upper intestine. This is one of the most common sites of conjoined twins.

Abdomen (Omphalopagus) - twins are joined near the belly button. Many omphalopagus twins share the liver and they generally do not share a heart.

Base of spine (Pygopagus) - twins are commonly joined back to back at the base of the spine, some pygopagus twins share the lower gastrointestinal tract, and a few share the genital and urinary organs.

Length of spine (Rachipagus)- twins are joined back to back along the length of the spine. This type is very rare.

Pelvis (Ischiopagus) - twins are joined at the pelvis, either face to face or end to end. Many ischiopagus twins share the lower gastrointestinal tract, as well as the liver and genital and urinary tract organs. Each twin may have two legs or, less commonly, the twins share two or three legs.

Trunk (Parapagus) - twins are joined side to side at the pelvis and part or all of the abdomen and chest, but with separate heads. The twins can have two, three or four arms and two or three legs.

Head (Craniopagus) - twins are joined at the back, top or side of the head, but not the face. Craniopagus twins share a portion of the skull. But their brains are usually separate, though they may share some brain tissue.

Head and chest (Cephalopagus) - twins are joined at the face and upper body. The faces are on opposite sides of a single shared head, and they share a brain. These twins rarely survive.

Surgical separation of conjoined twins is possible, but that comes along with many risk. Surgery to separate conjoined twins may range from very easy to very difficult depending on the point of attachment and the internal parts that are shared. Most cases of separation are extremely risky and life-threatening. In many cases, the surgery results in the death of one or both of the twins, particularly if they are joined at the head or share a vital organ. This makes the ethics of surgical separation controversial, as surgery may lead to one of the twins death also leaving the other twin mentally and emotionally unstable as they would have lost their sibling that has always been attached to them, but no surgery could potentially lead to death. In some case separation is vital for their survival. In this case what do you do? How do you pick? Would you rather have a short period of time with both the happy children or a long period bearing the loss of one, which will affect the other?

Although conjoined twins are highly rare they are the exact example of what ‘living in harmony’ is. Imagine that everything you had to do was a team effort. That’s a normal life for conjoined twins, who have to decide and execute all their actions together from what to wear and what to eat to what to study and where to work. Every action is about coordination and compromise and for some, it’s also full of companionship and unexpected joys. Conjoined twins occur in just one out of every 200,000 live births. Between 40 to 60 percent of conjoined twins are stillborn, and those born alive often don’t survive their first 24 hours. However there are less than 12 pairs of conjoined twins alive today.

Since 1950, at least one twin has successfully survived separation surgery about 75 percent of the time, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.

What are the chances of survival of both twins?

Thanks for reading

Kethujah Sethurajah

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/conjoined-twins/symptoms-causes/syc-20353910https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2188386

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjoined_twins

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