JAKARTA – An Indonesian woman has given birth to conjoined twins who have separate heads but a shared body.
The boys, who have not been named yet, share all vital organs and limbs, except for having two hearts and two heads.
They were delivered via cesarean section last Thursday, and were being held in the hospital in critical condition over the weekend.
Hospital director Dr. Rasul Alim said it would be medically impossible to separate the twins. Andreas Makmur, a member of the medical team working on the twins, said that their blood circulation and lungs were “in a bad shape.”
This type of fusion is extremely rare, and only four known sets of conjoined twins who share an undivided torso and two legs have ever survived into adulthood. The most well-known pair is Abigail and Brittany Hensel, a set of American women who now attend college together. However, Abigail and Brittany have a number of sets of organs, such as 2 stomachs, 4 lungs and 3 kidneys, which the infants do not.
The hospital has released footage of the Indonesian twins, seen below:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cL6pqU9yfI]
Even if they were born like this, it does not mean that they can no longer live a normal life. Their body is healthy and strong.