Indian woman, 22, gives birth to conjoined twins joined in the womb
- The babies, who have not yet been named, were born on Monday at a hospital in Bihar
- The couple have been transferred to a larger hospital due to the rarity of their condition
A mother in India gave birth to conjoined twins, who doctors say are ‘healthy’ despite sharing a torso.
Shams Praveen, 22, and her husband Zafar Alam did not know they would be having conjoined twins, yet to be named, until they were born.
The babies – attached to each other at the belly, with two arms and two legs each – were born on Monday at Purnia Government Medical College Hospital in Bihar, a state in the east of the country.
Due to the rarity of the condition, the couple has been transferred to a larger hospital for specialist care.
Treatment is ongoing, but the medical team says the children are doing well.
Shams Praveen, 22, and her husband Zafar Alam didn’t know they were going to have conjoined twins, yet to be named, until they were born
The babies – joined at the abdomen, with two arms and two legs each – were born Monday at Purnia Government Medical College Hospital in Bihar, India
A local source said: ‘The children have two bodies, but the stomachs of both children are connected.
“The condition of the children is still healthy.”
They added, “On Monday, when the pregnant woman felt pain, the relatives took her to the Government Medical Hospital, where the pregnant woman gave birth to two of these rare children.”
In December, there was an outcry on social media after conjoined twins from Punjab, India, who had been abandoned by their parents and raised in a shelter, revealed that they only received one salary between them.
During a YouTube interview, Sohna and Mohna Singh, aged 19, claimed that they only earn £200 a month. The siblings had previously said they were paid two separate salaries.
Sohna and Mohna have been working as electricians for over a year at the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited, working 12-hour shifts.
The siblings have two hearts, kidneys, and spinal cord, as well as two pairs of arms, but share a liver, gallbladder, legs, and spleen.
In the photo: the conjoined twins in the hospital. Due to the rarity of the condition, the couple has been transferred to a larger hospital for specialist care. Treatment is ongoing, but the medical team says the children are doing well
Conjoined twins are very rare, the outcome of an estimated 1 in 50,000 to 1 in 100,000 births, according to the National Library of Medicine (NLM).
The medical library notes that the overall survival rate is 7.5 percent. Only 60 percent of surgically separated cases survive.
The majority of conjoined twins die in utero, and about half of live births do not survive more than 24 hours.
Conjoined twins have a female to male ratio of three to one, according to the NLM.
Identical twins develop when a single fertilized egg splits during the first two weeks of conception. Conjoined twins form when this split occurs after the first two weeks of conception.
The Mayo Clinic notes that conjoined twins can be joined at the chest, abdomen, spine, pelvis, trunk, or head.