Two is not always better than one.
A baby with two heads was brought into this world by a woman in India after she was too poor to have an ultrasound during her pregnancy.
28-year-old Urmila Sharma, gave birth to conjoined twins at Cygnus JK Hindu Hospital in Sonipat, Haryana, in northern India, yesterday morning. The baby, born via C-section weighs at 7lbs 7oz and has two heads, two necks and two spines but only one body.
The baby girl, yet to be named, is under close monitoring and observation in the neonatal intensive care unit, but doctors fear her chances of survival are slim.
Dr Shikha Malik delivered the baby and said: “The parents are very distressed and we are helping the family the best we can.”
Urmila and her husband Subhash, 32, who have one other daughter, were too poor to have an ultrasound during the pregnancy so complications had gone unnoticed.
Dr Malik added: “We only came to know she was carrying conjoined twins after an ultrasound two weeks ago but it was too late to do anything by then. Now the baby is born we will do our best to save her and we hope to operate once her condition is more stable.”
Conjoined twins who share a single body have dicephalic parapagus – an extremely unusual form of conjoinment. It is not possible to separate dicephalic parapagus because they share the same body.
