Baby with two heads delivered in Lagos

The baby was delivered on Tuesday at Med-In
Specialist Hospital in Ogudu, through an
elective Caesarean section, after various scans
she underwent in the course of the pregnancy,
indicated that she was having a twins. .
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The baby was resuscitated and transferred to
the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH)
for advance care. According to one of the
nurses who was in the delivery room, they had
prepared two cots for each of the twins but
were shocked when they saw that they were
conjoined.
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“As I speak to you, the mother doesn’t know
the condition of the babies. She still believes
and expects to carry her twins. We haven’t
told her yet. Only her husband was brought
into the theatre to see his children and he was
the one who went with the doctors to LUTH,”
said the nurse.
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The condition is known as Parapagus. It is a
rare form of partial twinning where there are
two heads and two necks side by side on one
torso. Doctors say they cannot be separated
since they have only one pair of arms and one
pair of legs and one heart.
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This disorder is different from conjoined twins
as the baby has only one set of internal
organs. The extremely rare case is thought to
be brought on during the early stages of
pregnancy as a result of genetic mutation.
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Med-In Hospital Manager, Dare Moses, said
the baby was taken to LUTH so that tests can
be conducted to ascertain if they share also
vital organs like hearts and lungs. The Ministry
of Health has been notified of the
development. Crdt: The Nation