Conjoined twins Ximena and Scarlett-Hernandez Torres were delivered with their waists connected. This month, a 12-hour surgery has successfully separated the two babies from one another.
The conjoined twins were born on May 16, 2015 in Corpus Christi, Texas. Aside from their connected waists, the girls also shared a bladder and a colon. Those organs, however, will undergo reconstruction now that the surgery is over, CNN reported.
What makes this situation more interesting is the fact that they're not twins. The Torres sisters are actually triplets -- except their other sister, Catalina, was delivered sans any serious complications. Each of them weighed 4 pounds and 11 ounces. The conjoined sisters have stayed at the Driscoll Children's Hospital since they were born via C-section last year.
A Complex Procedure
High-tech medical devices were used for the operation, including a 3D model of a specialized MRI that assisted them in plotting the surgery. They also used a special scanner that helped them comprehend the complex blood circulation between the twins. The scanner kept the babies in good physical shape during the lengthy procedure.
"We are so pleased that this complicated procedure went smoothly," said pediatric surgeon Dr. Haroon Patel, via ABC News. "The success of such a rare and challenging operation like this depends on having a skilled team of professionals working together, and I thank our great personnel for their hard work."
Doctors, however, told the Corpus Christi Caller-Times that the twins are required to undergo more surgical procedures as they grow and their bodies mature.
Statistics Don't Look So Good
According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, for "every 200,000 live births," one pair would be conjoined - with uncertain survival rates. In fact, approximately 40 to 60 percent of conjoined twins were stillborn.
Survival rates for conjoined twins is said to range from five to 25 percent. Moreover, around 70 percent of conjoined twins are girls. Female siblings are more likely to live than their male counterparts. Male conjoined twins, however, are more common than females.
The most common kind of conjoined birth is the thoracopagus type, where babies are born with their upper torsos attached; and the omphalopagus, where twins are joined from the breastbone to the waist. The rarest type is the craniophagus kind, where babies are born with their cranium or heads connected.
In Saudi Arabia, a program led by surgeon Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah aims to set apart conjoined twins from impoverished families globally, the New York Times reported. Since 1990, the program performed 40 surgical separations for financially incapable families across 20 countries in three continents. That includes Fatima and Mishal Ghani, who were joined at the belly but shared one liver.
