Conjoined twins who share a heart and liver were born and listed in critical condition on Monday in Augusta, Ga., according to Fox News.
Brittany Crafton, 26, have birth to Chandler and Chance via caesarean section at Georgia Regents Medical Center.
Crafton's second sonogram showed that the twins shared a heart. She decided to continue the pregnancy after seeing the two children embrace each other in her womb. "How could you do something to two little babies, just looking like they're hugging each other?" Crafton told Fox 5 Atlanta. "I knew something had to be different when the ultrasound took longer than expected. The news of them being conjoined was truly surreal," she said, according to ABC News. "This experience has helped me to look at 'different' people differently, and I have gained a real compassion for what they go through."
In addition to sharing a heart and liver, the twins also suffer from club foot and a dislocated hip, according to USA Today. The case of conjoined twins is rare, occuring in just one out of every 60,000 births. Chandler and Chance are currently receiving treatment in the neonatal intensive care unit of Children's Hospital of Georgia (CHOG). This was Crafton's first pregnancy and was very unexpected.
Dr. Paul Browne, section chief of maternal-fetal medicine at Georgia Regents University and Health System, explained the ordeal of delivering the twins. "We have tools that help us predict children's chances of survival, but most of that depends upon the heart," Browne said last week. "What makes this case special is that the heart the twins share is quite normal and has been functioning very well for them. So, we believe it will continue to function well after the delivery."
