Parents face task of caring for Siamese twins

A second set of parents face the ordeal of looking after Siamese twins, the day after two babies were successfully separated.

Cristal Paola and Paola Cristal Colon were born in a New York hospital and are undergoing tests as their parents came to terms with their condition.

According to reports, they were born by Caesarian section after their Puerto Rican mother Mayda Merrago, 24, went into labour the day before doctors were due to operate on her.

The twin girls share a liver and a heart and are connected at the abdomen and the chest.

Their shared heart has six chambers instead of the normal four, while their shared liver is thought to be normal.

Their birth comes the day after Ganga and Jamuna Shrestha, twin girls from Nepal who had been joined at the head, were separated by doctors in Singapore.

The four-day operation on the 11-month-old twins was complicated by the extent to which their blood vessels were conjoined.

The parents of the twins born in New York moved to the city after they found out they were expecting the twins just two months ago during a routine scan.

Friends and family on the Latin American island have raised $80,000 to help the young couple and their children through the ordeal.

The babies are being treated at Colombia-Presbyterian hospital, where spokeswoman Alicia Kim said tests were being conducted to assess if they would survive separation surgery.