The exceptional birth of conjoined twins surprised doctors at a hospital in the Gaza Strip. Their condition is critical.
The phenomenon, extremely rare, concerns only one birth in 200,000: conjoined twins were born by caesarean on Tuesday, November 22 in a hospital in Gaza. The chances of survival of the two sisters, bound to the shoulders, are low.
“At first we thought it was just twins, which wouldn’t have been a problem for us. But we were surprised to see that they were Siamese babies,” the Jerusalem Post Dr. Hanan Al-Wade, pediatrician at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
Palestinian doctors have so far made no attempt to separate them. “It’s very difficult, continues Dr. Al-Wade, because they share many organs and they have a defective heart”.
An exceptional situation
Their condition is closely monitored, but the prognosis is poor. In this kind of connection, called parapage, the survival rates are tiny: the Siamese do not in principle survive until childbirth.
A situation that could lead Palestinian surgeons to transfer the Siamese to an Israeli hospital, better able to take care of them, according to the Israeli international channel i24news. The last such birth was recorded six years ago in China.
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