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LONDON: Surgeons launched an attempt to separate conjoined twins on Tuesday, bringing forward the high-risk operation after fears grew about their condition, a London hospital said.
The sisters, named Faith and Hope, are joined from the breastbone to the top of the navel but have their own organs except the liver.
Their mother, 18-year-old Laura Williams, is Britain's youngest-ever mother of conjoined twins. The pair were born by Caesarian section on Wednesday.
"The separation of conjoined twins Faith and Hope Williams has been brought forward and is currently taking place, after some concerns developed last night," said a spokeswoman for London's Great Ormond Street Hospital.
"Obviously, the final decision about separation surgery was made by the family."
The pair weighed 10 pounds and eight ounces (4.76 kilogrammes) at birth.
Conjoined twins occur when the single egg from which identical twins develop fails to divide properly after conception.
It usually occurs in women aged 25 to 40 years old. The survival rate is between five and 25 percent.
Williams and her husband Aled, 28, from Shrewsbury in west central England, were initially advised to terminate the girls.
The teenager told The Mail on Sunday newspaper: "After I came round from the operation they wheeled me in to see them.
"They were both blowing bubbles. They were so beautiful. I couldn't stop looking at them. After everything everyone said, I'm so glad to have proved them all wrong.
"We knew that conjoined twins very rarely make it through the first 24 hours and we could see that one girl was a bit smaller than the other so we called the little one Hope and the bigger one Faith," she added.
The children were in the care of paediatric surgery professor Agostino Pierro at Great Ormond Street, Europe's leading centre for conjoined twins, the newspaper reported.
"Every conjoined twins case is different, but this case presents features not seen before here," Pierro was quoted as saying.
Both hearts have significant congenital abnormality, he said, adding that the two hearts shared circulation, raising the risk that their condition might deteriorate, he said.
"Although the team would prefer to leave surgery until the children are older and stronger, increasingly we believe that this may be risky." - AFP/de
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