Twins ready for home soon

Press, 22 September 1987, Page 6

Twins ready for home soon

PA Hamilton The newly separated Siamese twins should be ready to leave Waikato Hospital “in a few weeks,” said a hospital pediatrician, Dr Tony Cull, yesterday. Their mother, who gave birth by caesarean section on September 17, is still in hospital with them. Dr Cull said she might go home before her baby daughters were discharged, but said mothers could stay on in such circumstances if they wanted to.

He said the mother was pleased they were progressing and confirmed she was expressing breast milk for them, which was being fed to the babies by tube. They would be able to suckle in a week or two. The “Waikato Times” said it believed the mother was aged 17, the

same age as the Solomon Islands mother who gave birth to Siamese twins recently.

Asked whether the incidence of Siamese twins was greater in younger mothers, Dr Cull said he did not know and said that they were not a common event in any case.

He confirmed that the Waikato Hospital twins were identical and said that that was normal with those joined at birth.

What had been unusual was the way the twins were joined — head-to-tail.

Dr Cull praised the nursing staff in the newborn unit where the twins were being cared for. The unit had been extremely busy in the last two weeks and they had “coped magnificently,” he said.