A couple in Indiana, Pa. says they’ve opted not to separate their newborn conjoined twins because surgery would put both their lives at serious risk.
The brothers were born 14 days ago and they share a heart and liver. Doctors say Garrett and Andrew Stancombe are healthy but the complex surgery might cause one – or both – to die.
I think living as a conjoined twin would be a horrible way to live.
The Hensel twins made a pretty good go of it.
You might want to read up on it. And yes, try to see the video of the Hensel girls, made when they were in high school. To find out a little about how conjoined–and separated–twins feel about the choice made for them, I’d suggest “One of Us.” Amazon has it in pb.
The original Hilton Sisters managed to make it work. (Their issues stemmed more from being exploited by their guardians, rather than being conjoined) In fact, they were in the cult classic, Freaks.
I think living with the knowledge that your twin died so that you could live would be a horrible way to live.
Or living with the knowledge that you killed both of your kids trying to separate them. Also horrible.
Or dying. Bad choice too.
There isn’t a good choice for the parents. The surgery would put them both at risk.
And the odds that these kids will live for a very long time don’t seem so good either.
If that’s their choice, then it seems the parents have opted to enjoy their sons for the time they will have them.
Yes and no - while most conjoined twins die very young some pairs have gone on to live long and healthy lives, like Chang and Eng Bunker and Lonnie and Donnie Galyon. So if they get through the next few years with few or no problems they stand a decent chance of living something like a normal lifespan.
Hey, weren’t there more posts in this thread yesterday? I seem to remember making one that isn’t here anymore…
Maybe the thread was surgically separated?
I;d never heard of the Galyon twins, it’s remarkable they lived so long.
But Chang and Eng Bunker were, by todays standards, probably easily seperable. They were two complete people joined only by a thick band of muscle or ligament under their ribcage. According to a biography I read of them they even did consider getting seperated just before they were to be married, but their fiancees, two sisters, urged them not to, deeming the risk too great.
sharing a heart is very tricky. i wonder if one would need to get a doner heart.
Well, yeah, if they want both to survive one would need a donor heart.
I think in this case they probably made the right decision, but then, not my child and not my decision to make. I just think a reflexive SEPARATE! is not necessary in the best interests of the twins in all cases.
Even if the Bunkers would be easily separated today, at the time they actually lived such surgery would have been extremely risky, so it’s still analogous to the Galyon situation - those two could theoretically be separated with today’s medical technology but they don’t want to take the chance.
How would that work? The heart has to be hooked to a host of other things in the body to function correctly, does it not? If the heart is not there, I cannot imagine that the supporting plumbing is there either.
Impossible to know without a really extensive medical examination of the two kids involved as each set of conjoined twins is different.
I suspect one reason that so many of them die at birth or shortly after is because things aren’t “hooked up” correctly to begin with. The ones that do well, like the Hensels, were lucky enough that the essential bits all had a viable connection to begin with.
So, there may be instances where a transplant could be done. In other instances it can’t be done.
One of the more moving, although very sad, accounts of conjoined twins was written by C. Everett Koop, former surgeon general of the US. He was involved in a case of conjoined twins where they absolutely would not survive if still linked together, both would certainly die, and in fact they were going downhill pretty fast. Unfortunately, only one could be saved. He went into an operating room with two infant patients and basically had to sever one from vital organs in order to save the other. He carried the dead baby out to the parents, so they could hold their son one last time, then went back to finishing the surgery on the surviving boy for several hours, basically reworking the wrongly hooked up bits. I believe in that case the surviving twin went on to a healthy life but I am so glad I have never had to confront a situation like that. These are not easy or routine cases.
i can’t begin to imagine the pain of the parents and of the doctor too.
I read that the odds of these twins both surviving if separated is between 5 and 25%, so the parents’ decision seems entirely rational to me. (unless things deteriorate to the point that keeping them together would be more likely to kill them)
Heck with it, I tear up just remembering reading about years after the event.
I was going to pretty much say the same thing. Conjoined twins that share a heart cannot be separated, and usually don’t live very long. I remember reading about some girls who lived a relatively normal life until shortly before their death…at the age of 7. 
The Hensels have separate hearts, and doctors think this is why they’ve lived as long as they have, also in otherwise good health.
A particularly heartbreaking case was that of Gracie and Rosie Attard from Gozo. They were initially known in the press as Jodie and Mary.
Jodie the healthier of the two was essentially keeping her sister alive, but her body could not take the strain and both were dying. Their doctors proposed separation, even though this gave Mary no chance of life, but the parents initially disagreed. The case was then decided by the law with this ruling.
There’s no doubt that this was an agonising decision for all concerned irrc the parents were satisfied for the case to be taken out of their hands and settled by the law. And the outcome for Jodie/Gracie was good.
We hear lots more about female conjoined twins than male. I’ve read that males have more complications than girls, and many die shortly after birth. Anyone know about that?
Yes. A liver can be split, but even if the heart has 8 chambers, the muscle isn’t thick enough to split.
The musculature of the left ventricle has to be thick and uninjured to withstand the high pressures it’s under.
Donor hearts for infants are hard to find.
This is an article, from 2007, about how a young girl has handled being a seperated conjoined twin. She is Eilish Holton, from Ireland, born in 1995, and seperated at the age of three from her sister, who died of cardiac arrest. Her parents said they wouldn’t have had the surgery if they’d expected either of the girls would die, although Katie, the deceased twin, did.