Latest Twins Stories

By Lois M. Collins Deseret News It will be years before "the Marys" -- Mary Ellen and Mary Elizabeth Govea -- are old enough to play with Barbies. But the plastic doll is a visual element of their survival story. When they were born in late April, they were smaller than she is, 1 pound 7 ounces and 1 pound 5 ounces respectively. Their parents, Bo and Stacy Govea, show pictures of the girls next to the doll, an explanation-in-pictures of their progress. That they've outgrown the iconic toy...

Fidelma and Paul Greene, from Swords, Dublin, said yesterday their daughters, Lauren and Sophie, were thriving three months after being born. Their unborn children had been given almost no chance of survival when Rotunda Hospital medics discovered they suffered from a rare medical condition. Doctors diagnosed them with Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome (TTTS) when their mother was 21 weeks pregnant. The condition means one baby gets too much blood and the other too little. In almost all...

A young Indian girl born with eight limbs is learning to function on her own after having two arms and two legs removed from her body, her mother says Lakshmi Tatma was born in October 2005 with two sets of arms and two sets of legs in a village in northeast India's Bihar region, ABC reported Friday. The girl became famous around the world and was honored in her village as a representative of the Hindu goddess Lakshmi, who also has several limbs. When Dr. Sharan Patil, an orthopedic...

Study into causes of disc degeneration awarded Kappa Delta Award from American Academy of Orthopaedic SurgeonsWhat do you learn by looking at the spines of hundreds of Finnish twins? If you are the international team of researchers behind the Twin Spine Study, you find compelling proof that back pain problems may be more a matter of genetics than physical strain.The findings of the Twin Spine Study, an ongoing research program started in 1991, have led to a dramatic paradigm shift in the way...

By GAVIN RABINOWITZ BANGALORE, India - A 2-year-old girl who was born with four arms and four legs showed the first signs of movement Thursday following a marathon operation to remove the extra limbs, doctors said. The girl, Lakshmi, was being kept sedated in the intensive care unit at a hospital in the southern Indian city of Bangalore during what doctors said was a critical 72-hour period following the operation. "Lakshmi has moved her toes and hands for the first time and opened her...

By Quarello, Edwin Molho, Marc; Ville, Yves Abstract Objective. To determine the incidence of fetal cerebral lesions and their characteristics in twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS). Design and setting. This was a retrospective analysis at a single center for the period 1999 to 2004 in which 299 cases of severe TTTS at 15-28 weeks of gestation were reviewed. Methods. Only cerebral injuries diagnosed during pregnancy or ischemic lesions diagnosed within the first week of life were...

By Jamie Reid, The Beaumont Enterprise, Texas Apr. 17--BEAUMONT -- Talkative and tight-jeaned twins Tiesha and Iesha Turner seem like any other high school sophomores as they chat about boys, church and music. Yet as the conversation turns toward surgeries and scars, these girls, who were born conjoined at the chest and abdomen, admit reaching their 16th birthday on Thursday marks a medical miracle. "But, we really don't talk about it," Tiesha said while sitting in front of baby pictures...

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - A conjoined twin girl was in critical condition on Sunday, three days after an operation to separate her from her sister, Xinhua news agency said. The 11-month-old girls, Hu Jingxuan and Chen Jingni, underwent almost 13 hours of surgery on Thursday in Shanghai under the care of 70 doctors and nurses working in shifts. Chen Jingni was breathing with the help of a respirator and was in stable condition, a hospital source told Xinhua. "But Hu Jingxuan's condition is...

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Conjoined baby sisters from California, fused from breast to pelvis, were successfully separated and in serious but stable condition on Thursday, doctors said. Renata and Regina Salinas Fierros, born in Los Angeles in August, were moved to intensive care Thursday after separation surgery and reconstruction of the chest walls and pelvic regions at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles. "Seeing the girls today, beginning to wake up and move and respond is great...

LONDON -- Children inherit their taste for meat and fish but when it comes to vegetables and desserts it's more nurture than nature, according to a study on Wednesday.Scientists who compared the food preferences of identical and fraternal twins found that some tastes are inherited while others are acquired."This is the first study to include significant numbers of protein foods and the first to show a high heritability for these," said Professor Jane Wardle of the charity Cancer...