Twin girls with one body and two heads born in China

TWIN girls with a single body and two heads have been born at a hospital in China.

Staff at Suining City Central Hospital in Sichuan province said the parents, who are farmers, did not want to have the babies at first, fearing they could not afford to keep them alive.

They transferred the twins to a hospital in the nearby metropolis of Chongqing to be examined by experts.

The twins weighed 9lbs (4 kg) and were 20 inches tall. They have two spines and two oesophaguses and share other organs. Doctors said it would be nearly impossible to separate them.

Doctors at Suining Central Hospital identified the mother as local woman Bao Qiaoying, 25, and added it was extremely rare for babies to be born with two heads.

Bao’s baby is the first case in China to have two heads. She works as a migrant worker in Guangdong Province where she became pregnant.

Surprisingly, her initial scan showed that the baby inside her womb was normal.

A second scan again showed that the baby was normal. However, a third scan last week suggested a second head.

Bao was told by doctors that “the foetus has two heads, and one body”.

Bao said: “My husband and I immediately went to the central hospital for another checkup and colour Doppler imaging confirmed my baby has two heads but one body.”

The couple planned to abort the child but Bao went into labour after arriving at Suining Central Hospital.

Doctor Zhang Libin said he advised the couple to give birth to the babies and abandon the abortion plan because it would be too dangerous for the mother who was already in labour.

The babies were delivered by C-section.

Further laboratory tests showed that there are two spines and one and a half hearts. The two heads share all other organs.

Zhang added that the babies must now live together as they could not separate the heads by surgery.