Conjoined twins winning life's toughest challenge—survival - Airman's World

Airman, Oct, 2003 by Mike Chillstrom

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas--Taking on life can be challenging enough. Add a twin sibling and the challenge becomes greater, even lifethreatening in the case of conjoined twins.

Nearly 60 percent of conjoined twins are stillborn, but Brynleigh and Victoria Smith beat the odds when they were born about five weeks early at Wilford Hall Medical Center in July.

Overcoming their first challenge of simply surviving birth, the twins faced life or death each day following delivery as their premature lungs required ventilation in the neonatal intensive care unit. The only time the twins weren't hooked up to life-saving equipment was between the delivery room and intensive care.

The Smith twins passed a second critical test just five days after birth when surgeons successfully repaired some exposed intestines and cut the girls' umbilical cord.

Doctors were concerned the surgery might put undue strain on the premature twins, who still rely on the help of ventilators to breathe. However, the operation was a success, and the girls are facing the next challenge in their intertwined lives--lung maturation and weight gain.

The girls, who share a liver, a sixchamber heart and possibly some intestines, are joined from chest to stomach. Their conjoined bodies weighed 7.9 pounds at birth.

Physicians said the twins are in-separable because of their heart's complexity, which ultrasound tests revealed severe abnormalities in the pumping muscle.

Maj. (Dr.) Kirk Milhoan, a Wilford Hall pediatric cardiologist, believes the girls can live well into their early adult years.

"Brynleigh and Victoria have overcome many obstacles to bring them this far," said their mother Dawn, wife of Army Spc. Matthew Smith, a topographical analyst stationed at Fort Hood, Texas. "[The twins'] future is still unknown, but we'll accept every moment with them as a gift and be grateful that we could be part of this miracle."