Two Siamese sisters united by the head were successfully separated thanks to a donation and have already been discharged

Safa and Marwa were born in January 2017, in Pakistan, united by the head. They are what is known by the name of 'craniopagus twins'.

His family wanted to separate them if possible and, after receiving a private donation, the sisters have been able to face each other for the first time at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, which had already made two previous separations of Siamese.

After 55 hours of the operating room and 11 months admitted, the twins have been discharged and they plan to return to their country in early 2020.

The story of Safa and Marwa

According to BBC News, which had exclusive access to the operations to which the sisters were subjected, Zainab Bibi had already given birth to seven children, all of them at home. So when she got pregnant with twins, the plan was the same.

But on an ultrasound they detected a complication, so they advised him to give birth in the hospital. The mother says to the environment that it was a difficult time for the family, because the girls' father had died two months before of a heart attack.

They also warn the mother that you could come together, but not to mention where in their bodies they could be attached. No one seems to realize the seriousness of the situation.

On January 7, 2017, the twins were born by caesarean section at Hayatabad hospital in Peshawar, about 50 kilometers from his home in northern Pakistan.

The family is explained that the girls are healthy. Zainab cannot see them immediately, because he has to recover from the surgery and it is the grandfather who discovers what happens: his granddaughters are Siamese and are joined by the head.

Five days pass before Zainab is sufficiently recovered to meet her daughters. First they show her a picture of her daughters and she recognizes the BBC that she fell in love with them instantly:

"They were very beautiful and had beautiful hair and white skin. I didn't even think about the fact that they were united. They are a gift from God."

He called them Safa and Marwa, through the twin hills of Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, very important in the Islamic pilgrimage.

In Babies and more, they successfully separate two 13-month-old Siamese babies joined by the chest and abdomen

At the end of a month the twins are discharged. A military hospital offers to perform the surgery to separate the girls, but they warn that one of them may die.

The mother is not willing to risk losing one of her daughters so the family contacts Owase Jeelani, a pediatric neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street in London (GOSH). The surgeon is convinced that they can be safely separated, but wants to do it before they reach 12 months of age, to get the best result.

It was August 2018 and the family had visas for the United Kingdom, but no funding. The doctor had only managed to raise a small amount.

The girls had already turned 19 months old, well beyond the age that the GOSH team recommended to operate, so the neurosurgeon asked the family to move to London because they can't wait any longer.

It was fall of 2018 when after consulting with his doctors in Pakistan, Great Ormond Street Hospital welcomed them to the Bumblebee pavilion. Zainab did not want to separate from her daughters and fell asleep in her room.

He told the English newspaper that, despite being united, they have very different personalities.

"Safa is intelligent, happy and talks a lot. Marwa, however, is shy. Sometimes she talks to herself, but when we talk to her she doesn't always respond."

Shortly after arrival, the doctor has lunch with a lawyer friend and explains his anguish for not being able to operate them. The lawyer makes a call from his mobile and the miracle occurs:

Ask the surgeon to tell the person on the other side of the phone the case of the twins. He is talking with a rich Pakistani businessman, Murtaza Lakhani. In a few minutes, you donate the money to cover the costs of your treatment.

The benefactor explained the reason why he decided to help:

"The twins are from Pakistan, my country of origin. However, the real reason I helped them was because it was an operation that was going to save the lives of two girls. For me it was an easy decision, it's how to build the future ".

They needed 55 hours of operating room

From that moment on, the two-year-old Safa and Marwa Ullah sisters began their journey towards their independent lives.

One hundred specialists have participated in the three operations performed in four months, totaling 55 total operating room hours. The last one, last February.

Great Ormond Street Hospital is a world leader in this type of surgery. Safa and Marwa were their third case of craniopagus twins and, the team knew that, in order to obtain the best results, the separation had to be carried out in several operations, to allow recovery between them.

In addition to surgeons and nurses, the team that took care of the care and separation of the twins included bioengineers, 3D modelers, a virtual reality designer, psychologists, radiologists, physiotherapists ...

In Babies and more The youngest Siamese to be separated at eight days of life

Surgeons separated their brains, which were intertwined in a shared skull, then repositioned them and then cut where they were joined.

Then they had to rebuild their skulls, sharing bone fragments between the two girls to stretch over the top of their new heads.

To understand how the English hospital team helped Safa and Marwa start independent lives and to be able to face each other for the first time since they were born, you can see the animation provided by the team that participated, where they explain the step by step process.

As BBC News explains, Safa, Marwa and their family have already been discharged and will remain in London for at least the next six months, while girls receive more physical therapy and checkups, but their plan is to return to Pakistan in early 2020.

Upon leaving the hospital that has been his home for the past 11 months, Zainab, his mother said that separating the girls was the right thing:

"I am very happy. Thank God I can hold one for one hour and then the other. God has answered our prayers."

This is how Siamese twins are formed

It is a strange rare case of twins, which occurs in one of every 200,000 births.

Its name comes from the famous twins of Siam, two brothers united by the liver, born in 1811.

They originate from a single fertilized egg, so they are identical and of the same sex. Its survival is 5 to 25%.

Normally, embryo division occurs within the first 13 days after fertilization, but when it occurs late, after the thirteenth day, division is incomplete causing babies to develop coupled or fused. When the division later occurs, more organs will share.

Depending on the part of the body that joins them, they are classified into: thoracophages (joined by the sternal region, pyrophogous (joined by the back), ischiopagos (joined by the pelvis) and craniopagos (joined by the head).

The latter are precisely the rarest in the simeses (between 1-2%) and those with the worst prognosis. But luckily there is always good news, as in the case of the Siamese we are talking about. Science does not stop moving forward!

Video: The Delaney Twins: Progress Report (March 2024).