Separated twins girls may have babies, doctors says
Separated twins girls may have babies, doctors says
Agence France-Presse, Singapore
Indonesian twin girls who were conjoined at the abdomen and hip can look to a future as mothers after they were successfully separated in a 10-hour operation in Singapore, their doctors said on Tuesday.
"They will be sexually active... they should be able to have babies," surgeon Tan Kai Chah told reporters three days after the 15-month-old girls, Angeli and Anggi, were separated by an international team of 15 doctors.
Tan said each of the twins, who like many Indonesians go by one name, now have one leg, with the muscle and skin from a middle leg they had shared but could not be saved grafted to cover their abdomens.
"I think all of us are very confident given the X-ray findings that these are going to be weightbearing legs and they will be able to hop around pretty fast," Tan said.
The operation was the third successful separation of conjoined twins in Singapore since 2001, following similar procedures on one-year-old Nepalese babies joined at the head and South Korean infants fused at the spine.
However an unprecedented operation on a pair of 29-year-old twins from Iran, which attracted global attention, ended tragically when both women -- Ladan and Laleh Bijani -- died following a 52-hour operation in July 2003.
The latest separation attempt had also been considered a highly risky affair, particularly for Angeli, who has a hole in her heart.
Doctors said Angeli and Anggi remained in intensive care at the private Gleneagles Hospital on Tuesday, although they were breathing on their own and there were no signs yet of any infections or other complications.
"Both children actually came out very well, very stable," one of two consultant pediatricians who is overseeing the girls' post-operative recovery phase, Kenny Ee, told the press conference.
"All their vital signs are stable and all their vital functions of their organs seems stable... so far we've been lucky."
Tan said both girls were expected to remain at the hospital for another six weeks before returning to Indonesia.
The girls, born into poverty in the Indonesian city of Medan, were brought to Singapore in February after an Indonesian businessman agreed to pay the medical fees of S$450,000 (US$273,000).
The girls' father, Subari, a snack vendor, thanked the 64-year-old businessman, Olo Panggabean, but said he was worried about how he would fund his daughters' medical costs for the rest of their lives.
"I think now my first concern is... the medical expenses to look after the kids, which is quite high," Subari told reporters at the hospital.