Quake victim has conjoined twins

A 24-YEAR-OLD woman from quake-hit Kashmir has given birth to conjoined twin girls after a marathon journey from her mountain village to a hospital.

But one of the babies died yesterday and the other was on a respirator, a doctor said.

The mother travelled by car along landslide-hit roads from her mountain village in the devastated Neelum Valley and then by helicopter, before giving birth on Saturday by Caesarian section to triplets. The other child, a boy, and the mother are doing fine.

Doctors at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences in Islamabad said the twins shared vital organs including the heart and liver. One of the girls died and the other is in “a very serious condition”, said Dr Mansoor, the hospital’s assistant director.

The distraught father, Mir Nawaz, called for surgeons to urgently separate the surviving twin from her sister.

Braving rain and snow, the couple had to make an eight-hour road trip to reach an army clinic and then went by helicopter to the regional capital of Muzaffarabad, where the triplets were delivered. The conjoined twins were later moved to Islamabad.

Dr Nadeem Akhtar, associate professor of paediatric surgery at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, said doctors were doing tests to assess the degree to which the twins shared organs.