MIRACLES IN LITTLE PACKAGES

THE GREENE twins are only the second pair of Irish infants whose lives have been saved by surgery within the womb.

Last year, the same team of Professor Fergal Malone and Dr Carol Barry-Kinsella managed to save the lives of the Kershaw twins Ryan and Dylan who also suffered from life threatening Twin-to-Twin Transfusion.

Twins occur in about one in every 80 births.

But they are becoming more common with the popularity of IVF and other fertility treatments that involve implanting multiple embryos in a mother's womb.

In about a third of cases, the twins are identical, meaning that they come from a single fertilised egg, or zygote, which then for some reason splits into two embryos.

When the zygote splits very late in development, the twins share the same placenta.

In the case of the Greene girls, and the Kershaw twin boys born in July last year, one twin claims the lion's share of the blood flow.

This is potentially fatal for both babies, and in times past doctors would strive to save one by sacrificing the other.

But now both babies can be saved through an amazing in-utero surgery. Professor Malone at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin uses a tiny camera only one-eighth of an inch wide to see inside the uterus.

Using this "window into the womb", the Professor then guides a laser into position where he can use it to fix the abnormal blood vessels in the placenta.

The procedure is only available in a handful of hospitals worldwide, mostly in America and continental Europe.

The specialist foetal operating theatre at the Rotunda Hospital is the only facility in the whole of Ireland with the facilities and medics capable of performing this miracle operation.

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