A 31-year-old mother, of twins joined at the head, is over the moon after her babies were separated at Red Cross War Memorial Children\u2019s Hospital (RCWMCH) in Cape Town. <\/p>\n
\u201cI am overjoyed! I wasn\u2019t expecting to leave here holding my children one in each arm,\u201d said the elated mom, Ntombikayise Tyhalisi.<\/p>\n
According to the Western Cape Health Department, Siphosethu and Amahle were born in the Eastern Cape and later transferred to the RCWMCH when they were four days old.<\/p>\n
The conjoined twins successfully underwent separation surgery in February this year and are recovering well.<\/p>\n
\u201cA multi-disciplinary team, involving a full set for each twin was put together for this unique surgery. Each team comprised an anaesthetist, neurosurgeon, plastic surgeon and nurses,\u201d said the provincial department.<\/p>\n
RCWMCH\u2019s Paediatric Neurosurgery Head, Professor Tony Figaji, said twins born joined at the head is a rare condition called craniopagus. <\/p>\n
\u201cCraniopagus twins occur approximately once in every 2.5 million live births worldwide. We were fortunate in this case that the connection did not involve any shared brain tissue and didn\u2019t involve major [blood] vessels going from one twin to the other,\u201d Figaji added.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Plastic Surgery Head, Professor Saleigh Adams, told the department that the teams were prepared for a marathon surgery.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were prepared for a six-hour, at least, surgery. On this occasion, the surgery lasted all of one and a half hours. This is a huge plus for the recovery of the twins.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hospital\u2019s acting CEO, Dr Anita Parbhoo, said: \u201cWe are proud of the entire multidisciplinary team involved in helping these twin patients \u2013 from the birthing team in the Eastern Cape and the referring clinicians, to our staff in the wards and theatre and then to those involved with the post-surgery care. A huge thank you to everyone\u201d.<\/p>\n
The hospital\u2019s focus now turns to ensure the healthy healing of the surgical areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cBoth patients and mom are doing well following the surgery and continue to receive follow-up care.\u201d \u2013 SAnews.gov.za<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A 31-year-old mother, of twins joined at the head, is over the moon after her babies were separated at Red Cross War Memorial Children\u2019s Hospital (RCWMCH) in Cape Town. \u201cI am overjoyed! I wasn\u2019t expecting to leave here holding my children one in each arm,\u201d said the elated mom, Ntombikayise Tyhalisi. According to the Western […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[38678],"class_list":{"0":"post-188540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-sanews","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188540\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}