Separation Siamese twins' medical sensation '

bern - Swiss doctors have separated conjoined twins of eight days old. It is the first time that such an intervention is successful in such young children, the hospital said in Bern. Doctors speak of a medical sensation.

The two girls, Lydia and Maya, are part of triplets. The third child was born healthy. The babies are eight weeks prematurely into the world. The two children together weighed only 2.2 kilos. They shared a liver, but otherwise had all the vital organs. The success rate of the operation would have been only one percent.

The five-hour long operation has been carried out on December 10, two months earlier than was intended. The condition of the girls was so bad that further waiting was not an option anymore. Through the shared liver of the girls flowing a large amount of blood from one to the other baby. One child had therefore too little blood, while the other had a lot of high blood pressure.