Rare conjoined twin birth expected in California

February 10, 1998
Web posted at: 4:45 a.m. EST (0945 GMT)

LOMA LINDA, California (CNN) -- A California woman is to give birth Tuesday to a very rare set of conjoined twins who share two legs from the waist down.

A team of experts at Loma Linda University Children's Hospital plans to deliver the twin girls by Caesarean section Tuesday morning. They then will begin evaluating how the babies might fare if put through a series of pioneering operations to separate them.

Such operations most likely would not take place for at least a year because of the risk involved to both girls, doctors have said.

"There isn't a lot of history about what the natural course will be for this type of defect. There have been successful separations of this variety when they have more legs. To our knowledge, there is no report of successful separation when there is only two legs," Dr. Gerald A. Nystrom, medical director of the hospital's neonatal intensive care unit, told The Associated Press.

Shared kidney poses major threat

The girls, to be named Gabrielle and Michaela, are joined side-to-side in a rare condition known as parapagus. They share just two legs, a single large intestine and a large kidney.

The two appear to have normal heads, brains, lungs, hearts and arms. Their spines appear separate, but may be fused at the base.

The babies share two legs, one set of large and small intestines, and one large kidney.

Doctors have said the shared kidney poses a major threat to their survival if separated. However, the sole kidney appears to be large and structured "more like it was trying to be two kidneys," Nystrom said.

He added there was "a possibility that (the kidney) could be separated and therefore there is still some hope that these twins can be separated."

The frequency of conjoined twin births is somewhere between 1 in 100,000 to 1 in 200,000, with twins with just two shared legs being the most rare, Nystrom said.

Parents decided not to abort

Angel Garcia, the babies' father

The 21-year-old mother, Karen Crowe, who already has another child with father Angel Garcia, 26, declined to have an abortion when she learned the twins were joined.

"I'm not going to play God," she said. "If God takes my babies, that's up to Him. I had to give them a chance of life, whether they are crippled or not."

Crowe has carried the twins for about 38 weeks, just shy of the typical full term of 40 weeks. A routine ultrasound at 13.5 weeks determined the twins were conjoined.

"It was a shock in the beginning, but you've got to stay strong," the father said.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

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