Two conjoined twins were separated during a historic 11-hour operation at a Texas hospital.
Cook Children’s Medical Center said in a press release that the hospital “performed the first-ever separation operation for conjoined twins AmieLynn Rose and JamieLynn Rae Finley of Fort Worth, Texas.”
The operation took place on Monday and involved the work of 25 staff members, including six surgeons.
“While it is still very early, both AmieLynn and JamieLynn are recovering well,” the hospital said.
Estimated to occur in about one in 200,000 live births, Siamese twins are rare, the hospital noted, adding that only five to eight Siamese twins worldwide live longer than the first few days.
The Texas twins were omphalopagus, meaning they were “joined at the belly and had one or more internal organs.”
JamieLynn and AmieLynn “were connected from the bottom of the sternum to the navel and shared a liver,” the hospital said.
They were born prematurely on October 3 last year at Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital.
Two conjoined twins were separated during surgery in Texas
(Screenshot / CBS News)
The planning of the operation took months and involved examining scans, building models, preparing possible solutions, and trialling procedures.
They went through “many simulations of separation operations and prepared for many predictable scenarios and outcomes,” the hospital said.
Neonatologist Dr. Mary Frances Lynch said in a statement that “at this stage of AmieLynn and JamieLynn’s growth and development, it was the right time for surgery.”
“The separation now will benefit AmieLynn and JamieLynn by allowing them [to] continue to reach important growth and development milestones in their individual health journeys,” she added.
On the day of surgery, a large number of medical personnel were on hand, including three anesthesiologists, four pediatric surgeons, two plastic surgeons, and 18 other staff.
“They were divided into two teams, one for each girl. Those with purple hats were on Team JamieLynn while Team AmieLynn wore green hats, and all items related to their surgery, the twins’ care was properly color coordinated, even the girls’ nails were painted color coordinated. They all worked together until the children were separated, and then each team focused solely on their assigned child,” the hospital said.
Upon learning that her twins were conjoined, Amanda Arciniega’s mother said: “We thought, why us?”
The chief surgeon, Dr. José Iglesias, said “we are very pleased with their progress at this point”, according to CBS News.
“We are focusing on treating them. Of course, there are risks to a few things, but we’re keeping an eye on them.” “They’re going to grow up to be the little girls they’re supposed to be – independent and feisty, as they’ve already shown us.”
