# Conjoined Triplets???
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conjoined-triplets/261864
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [August 27, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conjoined-triplets/261864 "2004-08-27T23:09:09Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@rippingtons\_fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rippingtons_fan)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2004, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conjoined-triplets/261864/1 "2004-08-27T23:09:09Z")
Have there ever been any conjoined triplets, and if so, did they survive?
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [August 27, 2004, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conjoined-triplets/261864/2 "2004-08-27T23:21:25Z")
> [@](#):
>
> While there aren’t any documented cases of conjoined triplets, there have been triplet births that featured conjoined twins, most recently Nida and Hira Jamal of Pakistan. Although the two Craniopagus girls were successfully separated, tragically Nira’s heart wasn’t strong enough after the separation and she died shortly after the operation.
> **[Conjoined Twins » TwinStuff](https://www.twinstuff.com/conjoined-twins/)**
>
> Conjoined twins originate from a single fertilized egg so they are always identical and same-sex twins. It occurs 1 in 200 deliveries of identical twins.
WAG - you’d need the very small chance of an incomplete separation of cells which creates conjoined or identical twins to occur twice with the same foetus. Google tells me that conjoined twins occur in 1 in 50000 births. So triplets would be 1 in 2.5bn. And then you’re relying on complications not occuring, with complications surely far far more likely in conjoined triplets even than with twins.
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### Author:  [@Josh\_dePlume](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Josh_dePlume)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2004, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conjoined-triplets/261864/3 "2004-08-28T01:09:37Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#):
>
> Google tells me that conjoined twins occur in 1 in 50000 births. So triplets would be 1 in 2.5bn.
I don’t think that calculation is correct, any more than the frequency of ordinary triplets should be the square of the frequency of ordinary twins. But I agree that we can expect the frequency to be small. The link that you gave gives the frequency of conjoined twins as 1 in 200 deliveries of identical twins. So we might expect conjoined triplets 1 in 40,000 deliveries of identical triplets. Triplets are rare, and my impression is that **identical** triplets are extremely rare.
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [August 28, 2004, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conjoined-triplets/261864/4 "2004-08-28T01:18:36Z")
> [@Josh\_dePlume](#):
>
> The link that you gave gives the frequency of conjoined twins as 1 in 200 deliveries of identical twins. So we might expect conjoined triplets 1 in 40,000 deliveries of identical triplets.
Quite right. The odds on identical triplets are 1 in 600,000 births. So that gives odds on conjoined triplets of 1 in 24bn.