Conjoined Twins Separated | National Geographic

Chelsea and Maggie are our two conjoined twins.

They’ve traveled to us from Sierra Leone for the explicit purpose of being separated.

They’re now five months old.

My daughters, this is Maggie and this is Chelsea.

They like to sleep.

If we’re looking at the babies, now, we can see that they’re connected here across their abdomen and they’re going to be separated here across their abdomen.

Seeing two conjoined twins that are healthy that are appropriate for separation is extremely rare.

The entire experience in the literature is limited in terms of how many of these operations have actually been done.

Chelsea and Maggie are primarily joined at the chest wall and at the abdomen. Anatomically that the most likely areas where they’re going to be joined is certainly at their liver and potentially also at their breast bone and their pericardium, which is the lining around the heart.

We knew that we would need to create more skin and soft tissue in order to have adequate coverage over their organs after we separated them.

And so six weeks ago, we placed tissue expanders underneath their skin and began a process of slow expansion of the soft tissue envelope and we are setting the stage for what will be a very big day, but a very good day where we’re hoping to separate them successfully tomorrow.

In July 2018, I got married.

My lovely wife gave birth to three babies. The boy was separated, the two girls was conjoined.

When my children born, I feel excited why I see them.

I was thinking about their separation, whether they are going to separate or not.

Unfortunately, I lost my son after a couple of weeks in the hospital in Sierra Leone.

There was really a big devastation for the family.

That’s when they really wanted to go seek medical care outside.

I want my babies going well, play, and have a successful life and happy life.

When they are separated. We know we are going to be a super happy family.

This morning begins the day of separation.

You know, we are prepared. We are ready for any unexpected event.

I’m really excited for the family.

This is really going to play out we hope as a well coordinated symphony where we’re going to culminate with each person doing their portion and using their expertise to create this separation.

How are you this morning?

First several hours will be the delivery of anesthesia and the monitoring and then the separation will begin. It will take several hours and the reconstruction will take an additional several hours. So we’ll go most of the day today.

We are about to start the split.

The first thing that will need to happen will need to actually be a separation of their breast bone or their sternum.

And then we’re going to get to the point where we’re going to have to do a separation of the lining of the heart.

And so that’s going to be Doctor Bosch’s job to separate any of the cardiac contents.

After that, we’re going to work our way down into the intra-abdominal area.

And so at that time, Doctor Tom Cato from our liver transplant team will take the lead.

There’s only one organ that is really clearly fused is the liver.

And it’s not a really small portion.

It’s a very big portion of the liver is fused. So we have to split into two parts.
Start visual description. Censored video of liver being separated in the surgery. End visual description.

So then the next part of the surgery, Doctor Stylianos and I will take the lead and we’ll do the final separation of the rest of the soft tissue envelope.

We then had a magical moment where we took the two girls which were sharing one table and we now brought them to two separate tables being the first time that they were physically in a separate space.

The twins have been separated there.

We still have a fair amount of work to do.

We’ll update you as we’re going along, but we wanted to deliver that piece of information.

They were cheering.

I was so overjoyed. I don’t know what to say.

When I hear my girls separated.

We now in a sense, had two simultaneous operations that were ongoing. As we have known and as we suspected all along, although the two girls were conjoined, they are not made equally. On the one table. Doctor Basha and his team assisted by Doctor Kato began the process of trying to actually get Chelsea’s left ventricle to sit within her chest.

Myself and my team along with Doctor Stylianos was taking the lead on beginning the closure process for Maggie.

We brought the both girls up to the ICU.

Well, the day of the surgery, we go and see them separated different beds. Oh, we are so happy at that moment.

We shared a hug with the parents.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

They are doing great because now they move, they stand for themselves, they walk a little bit.

So they are doing well now.

You know, this whole experience I would say has been so gratifying.

It was amazing to see this young, young couple display such bravery and bringing their children here for us to take care of and really trusting that we have the correct expertise here to do so.

There are definitely two different girls. Chelsea, though she may be the smaller one, had a lot of spunk to her and had a lot of strength and Maggie seemed a little more domicile and a very, very smiley little baby.

It’s just remarkable to see the two kids and to see the dynamic between them and the parents.

My kids are separated now. They have to live a normal life like the other kids. So I happy with my lovely wife so much because we went through a lot before the separation.

We give thanks and appreciation to each and everyone in this hospital.

The way we see them playing together, they are having new life right now.

They’re feeling good to be so happy about that.

I want them to be healthy and better life like the other kids are because they are different now, everything will be ok.