A Maldivian mother has reportedly given birth to conjoined twins in Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH).
Hospital Spokesperson Zeenath Ali declined to disclose information about the twins, stating that the family had requested that information regarding the incident not be disclosed, and that the hospital’s medical staff also did not wish to disclose any information about the babies.
“Truly, we also do not know about it,” she said, adding that the hospital’s record system “will only show that a person gave birth, and does not include what kind of baby was born or its condition.”
Local newspaper Haveeru, which claimed to have pictures of the twins, reported that they were both female and shared the one heart, and that their condition was serious.
Conjoined twins, also known as ‘Siamese twins’, is a rare phenomenon thought to occur between one in every 50,000 to 100,000 births, with a higher incidence in Southwest Asia and Africa, and a greater frequency among females.
Approximately half conjoined twins are stillborn, while a smaller percentage of those pairs born alive “have abnormalities incompatible with life”, according to Wikipedia’s entry on the subject.
The overall survival rate for conjoined twins is approximately 25 percent, while most cases of surgery to separate twins are extremely risky and life-threatening.
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