It's so exciting to see them sleeping in separate beds for the first time. A surgical team of 24, led by staff neurosurgeon Scott Campbell, operated on Tuesday to cut through a piece of bone the size of a 50-cent coin. The twins also shared major blood vessels but had individual brains. Doctors said before the operation that there was a 70 per cent chance one of the girls would not survive the surgery. One of the grandparents said doctors had warned them it could take as long as 14 days before the twins were in the clear.
Every hour is critical.
Dr Campbell said earlier in the week that the biggest challenge was to separate the veins connected to each baby's brain. Doctors would then reconstruct the shared portions of brain and skull before plastic surgeons covered the areas with skin. The identical twins were born with a rare condition known as craniopagus, occurring in only 2 per cent of Siamese-twin births or one in every five billion births. Siamese twins are conjoined because they originate from a single fertilised egg. The embryo starts to split into identical twins, but stops before the process is completed.