Two teams of surgeons — one for each girl — and more than a dozen other medical staff spent months planning the operation for conjoined twins Sarabeth and Amelia.
"This is not an ordinary C-section because with an ordinary C-section, you just have to make an incision big enough to deliver one at a time," she said."This surgery would require making an incision not only in her abdomen, but also in her uterus, that can accommodate the delivery of two kids simultaneously without pulling on those shared organs or causing any kind of disruption to them.
Although the outlook was exceptionally good given the odds, being born prematurely and as conjoined twins, Sarabeth and Amelia remained hospitalized for 85 days.How do you put conjoined twins in a car seat? This was among the challenges Phil and Alyson faced in the months following Amelia and Sarabeth's healthy delivery.
As the girls grew bigger and stronger, they began to talk more about how and when separation surgery might occur.Dr. Steven Kasten, pediatric plastic surgeon at Mott, began working with the Irwin family soon after the twins were born to plan how they'd create enough skin to be able to cover the abdomens of both girls once they were separated.
As the girls recovered in March from their illness — a cold that progressed to pneumonia — the global coronavirus pandemic made every decision more complex. It was like orchestrating a complex medical ballet where every move, every step had to be choreographed and precise, Mychaliska explained. They had one small, shared sternum bone that would have to be divided, and separate livers that were fused, he explained.
Their teams were color-coded. Amelia's was pink. Her fingernails were painted to matched her surgical hat. Sarabeth's was yellow.
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