In the 24th week of her pregnancy, doctors at the Nowrosjee Wadia Maternity Hospital in Parel informed Sheetal Zalte that she was carrying conjoined twins, and immediately began counselling her on the implications and steps to be taken.
On Wednesday, doctors at the Bai Jerbai Wadia hospital in Parel carried out a 12 hour long surgery to separate a set of 14 month old conjoined twins. Luv and Prince Zalte were attached from lower part of the chest and shared a common liver, intestine, bladder and pelvic bone since their birth on September19 last year.
The high risk surgery that started at 4 a.m. involved a team of 30 doctors including paediatric surgeons, anaesthetists, orthopaedic surgeons, gynaecologists among others. The hospital had shut down seven of its operation theatres and only kept one emergency OT open so that the team of specialists could be fully focussed on this surgery. The twins are now in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) of the hospital and are in a stable condition.
The parents of the twins, Sheetal and Sagar, who reside in Ghatkopar can’t contain their happiness. “It is hard to express in words how happy I will be to hold my children in both my arms,” said 26-year-old Sheetal who was told about the condition of the twins when she was in 24th week of her pregnancy.
“The doctors at Wadia hospital explained me every minute detail. It was only because of them that we sailed through,” said Sheetal who delivered the babies at the same hospital through a caesarean section. At the time of their birth, OTs were kept ready in case they would require an emergency surgery. But the twins were fine after birth,” said paediatric surgeon Dr Pradnya Bendre adding that in many cases, separation surgeries are carried out within 6 months. “But we decided to wait for some more time and let the organs grow to an optimal level, “ she said.
According to anaesthetist Dr Pradnya Sawant, the babies were positioned on top of each other like a scissor. “Giving anaesthesia to tiny babies is generally difficult. In this case, it was tougher as any of the babies could have reacted different and collapsed. We anticipated a lot of problems during surgery but fortunately no complications came up, “she said adding that post surgery, the babies have been left with small part of liver which will grow over a period of time. The babies had a common 40 cm long intestine which has been divided into two. The urinary bladder too was divided and the doctors suspect that they may face a problem with bladder control but that can be noticed only after they grown up.
The twins have been identified as xiphi-omphalo-ischiopagus tetrapus, a kind of conjoined twinning that is considered rare. Since they were fused from below the chest level, doctors had to use a large quantity of artificial membrane to cover their body post the surgery. In future, they may require several bone and plastic surgeries.
Luv and Prince are the third set of conjoined twins operated at the Wadia Hospital. The first surgery was carried out in 1993 and the twins, who are now healthy, live out of the country. The second surgery was on Riddhi and Siddhi from Raigad district who were abandoned by their parents. The girls, now 4 year old, live in the hospital.
“It was after meeting Riddhi and Siddhi that Sheetal became convinced about the surgery for her children, “said hospital’s CEO Dr Minnie Bodhanwala.
