A new born baby with two heads was
delivered on Tuesday at a hospital in Ogudu on the outskirts of the commercial
city of Lagos, as photos emerge showing the two heads with oxygen tube strapped
on each.
According to a shocking report by
The Nation, medical doctors at Med-In Specialist Hospital, Osogbo Street, who
took the delivery, said the baby was born around 6:30pm on Tuesday
through an elective caesarean section.
It was gathered that the baby's
mother, surgeon and nurses entered the theatre prepared to take delivery of a
set of twins as indicated by the various scans she underwent in the course of
the pregnancy, but what they saw were two heads sharing a body.
The baby was resuscitated on
Wednesday and transferred to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) for
advance care.
Speaking to correspondents, one of
the nurses who was in the delivery room, disclosed that they had prepared two
cots for each of the twins but were shocked when they saw that they were
conjoined.
“This is the first time I am seeing
anything like this. I have watched it in movies but seeing it in real life was
such an experience for me. Thankfully, the surgeon ensured that they survived.
“As I speak to you, the mother
doesn’t know the condition of the babies. She still believes and expects to
carry her twins. We haven’t told her yet. Only her husband was brought into the
theatre to see his children and he was the one who went with the doctors to
LUTH,” the nurse said.
In medical parlance, the condition
is known as Parapagus. It is a rare form of partial twinning where there are
two heads and two necks side by side on one torso.
Also speaking, Dare Moses, the
Med-In Hospital Manager, said the baby was taken to LUTH so that tests can be
conducted to ascertain if they share also vital organs like hearts and lungs.
He said: “There is need to
find out if they share major organs together. They may have to be flown abroad
for separation if they have separate hearts and other vital organs. It is
possible for them to survive. I have seen cases of twins like this in movie
surviving and living normal lives.
“Normally, when we have cases of
pregnant woman expecting twins, we usually go for elective caesarean, which was
what the mother opted for.
“But when the doctor was trying to
extract one of the babies (first one), it got stuck and when he examined
further, he discovered that there were two heads in one body. We are happy that
the baby was delivered alive and placed on oxygen. Both heads were alive.
“It was really amazing. I am proud
and thankful that we delivered the baby alive. Yes, several scans were done by
the mother in the course of pregnancy at different places, but none discovered
any abnormality. We are thankful that the operation was successful.”
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