Just 3 days ago a mother here in our country gave birth to a conjoint twin. They had two heads, but only one body, it is scary indeed and depressing for the parents but foreign doctors have given hope and are trying to analyze if they can be successfully separated through operation. So far they found out that they have 2 hearts but share only a piece of some vital organs. The percentage of successful operations infants that suffered through the same abnormality are almost none. The most recent surgery that occured only made the babies live for 3 days. I just pray that someday medicine can treat this. Furthermore I believe it's also a matter of a good preventive measure from the start.
A matter of good preventative measures? How are you going to stop that? Basically, to stop it from happening, you'd have to stop people from having multiple births. Such conjoined twins don't have to be separated to live, either. I remember there was a hugely publicised set of twins who were joined halfway up the spine, if I remember correctly, so had two legs and two arms, but two hearts and two heads. They can still walk, despite only controlling one leg each, and even learnt to drive recently. They actually had to take it twice, not because they failed, but because they each needed to get their license individually. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at with the whole 'what's your take' thing, because I don't really see there as being any 'take'. It's definitely a sad, but rare, occurrence, not because they're not people, but just due to the added complications. If they can be separated with a reasonably high chance of survival, then that would be best, but it's not as though they need to be euthanised if they can't.
Sadly, there's not really any way science can stop these occurances from happening. The only practical thing science/medicine can do is develop better operations. Maybe someday the majority of these kind of conjoined twins would be able to survive separation. Wonder if the parents will decide to try separating them or keep them together.
Depends what organ's they're sharing. If it's just a small part of the liver or lung, there shouldn't be any problem, but seeing as though they're practically sharing a body, I doubt there's any chance of them doing so.
Thats not completely true, at least hypothetically not. Even now its possible to monitor the fetus and analyze its DNA for all kinds of defects. If anything goes wrong its possible to fix it or abort the fetus. Of course you then have the question of ethics to what extend should you manipulate with the fetus and its DNA.
being conjoined isnt a matter of DNA, higgs, and i dont think we can recognize conjoined twins in the womb with only echo scans, so aborting all aint possible either( i will not go into ethics here)
It is very possible to recognize conjoined twins with the more modern versions of echo scans. Especially when the doctor knows its going to be twins he might take extra time to check more carefuly.
Good point, i havent really been keeping up with echo scan techniques, all i know are the ones from around my birth, on which you really cant see what is what
seeing and fixing are two very different things though. performing surgery on a fetus while it's still in the womb? that'll take some skill, to say the least.
Sure but if its founf out early enough there is a possibility of abortion. edit: and there already are techniques emerging of a surgery on a fetus so hopefully soon enough we will ahve real chance of preventing this from happening.
I prefer to close my mind and not try to think about situations like this. I get completely drained otherwise :S.
