Doctors successfully separate 8- day-old conjoined twins

Doctors have successfully separated conjoined
twin sisters fused at the liver and chest - the
smallest pair ever to survive surgery.
Five surgeons, assisted by two nurses and six
anaesthesiologists, carried out the successful,
five-hour operation to separate the tiny identical
twins at a hospital in Bern, Switzerland.
Maya and Lydia were born two months
prematurely along with their triplet sister Kamilla
in December.
They were initially stable and doctors at
Inselspital hospital, Bern, had planned to allow
them to settle after birth and separate them after
a few months.
But after a week, their situation deteriorated
dramatically: one suffering from hypertension and
the other suffering from the opposite condition,
known as hypotension.
Both conditions were life-threatening to the frail
twins, who weighed just 2.4 pounds each, and the
doctors decided their only chance was attempting
surgery never before performed on such young
infants.
Separating the babies' liver put both under
massive pressure, said Barbara Wildhaber, head
of the paediatric surgery unit at the Geneva
University Hospital, who headed the team that
carried out the surgery.
'We were prepared for the death of both
babies, it was so extreme,' she told Swiss
paper Le Matin Dimanche.
She added: 'It was magnificent. I will remember it
my entire career.'
Since their surgery, Maya and Lydia have been
recovering well, they have put on weight and have
begun breast feeding, the paper reported.
The pair is among only about 200 separated
conjoined twins currently living around the globe,
it said.
Also known as Siamese twins, conjoined siblings
are identical twins who in rare cases, about one in
200,000 live births, are born with their skin and
internal organs fused together, according to the
University of Maryland Medical Centre website.
About half are stillborn, and the survival rate is
between five and 25 percent.
They develop from a single egg, which splits in
the case of healthy twins, but not fully in the
case of conjoined siblings.