Baby girl born with her parasitic twin’s HEAD attached to her tummy undergoes surgery to remove it
Medics were shocked to find a fully formed head protruding from the little girl's stomach
A BABY born with two heads is expected to survive after doctors removed the parasitic twin that was "feeding off" her blood supply.
The baby girl, who is yet to be named, was born via C-section at Ram Snehi Hospital in northern India last month.
But medics were shocked to discover the newborn had an extra head complete with eyes, ears, a nose and lips protruding from her stomach.
The parasitic twin also had a malformed hand hanging over the little girl’s chest.
Doctors referred her for surgery at JK Lone Hospital in Jaipur some 336 miles away.
A team of surgeons removed the head in a four-hour operation.
Dr Pravin Mathur, professor and head of paediatric surgery at the hospital, said: “This is one of the rarest cases of parasitic twin.
"It was a complicated case as the twins shared blood vessels.
“They were joined from the thorax and shared common vessels for blood supply from heart and liver.”
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The parents, who work on a farm, were told they were expecting twins during a routine ultrasound.
But medics did not realise one of the twins was parasitic.
Though similar to a conjoined twin, a parasitic twin is not fully formed and was never a viable foetus.
The young couple, who did not want to be identified, were unsure their baby girl would survive long enough to have her twin removed.
Dr Mathur added: "The parents told us the mother had undergone sonography and other tests but were not told about carrying an underdeveloped twin.
“They were shattered when they saw the baby.
“We had to convince them to give us a nod for the surgery to save their daughter's life.
"The baby had chances of catching septicaemia.
"We immediately conducted CT Scans, blood tests and X-rays and operated on the child.”
The hospital reportedly did not charge the family for any costs and the baby is recovering well.
A parasitic twin can occur when twin embryos begin developing in the womb but do not split properly.
WHAT IS A PARASITIC TWIN?
Similar to a conjoined twin, in the case of a parasitic twin, one of the babies is not fully formed, and was never a viable foetus.
Parasitic twins happen when a twin embryo begins to develop in the womb.
The pair fail to fully separate and one embryo remains dominant, at the expense of its twin.
The underdeveloped twin is defined as being parasitic, rather than conjoined, because it is incompletely formed and wholly dependent on the body of its twin.
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