The baby after the surgery with her parents.

LUCKNOW: In an extremely rare surgery, a baby, growing with its conjoined twin that lacked a head and a heart, was saved by doctors at Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences.

Also, in this case, the abnormal twin was posing a severe threat to life of the normal twin. And, it was triggering an early childbirth.

Speaking about the case, head of maternal and reproductive health department prof Mandakini Pradhan said: “A 5.5-month pregnant woman with twins was referred to us about three months ago. The undeveloped twin was drawing blood and nutrients from the normal twin.”

“And, in the process of sharing, the functioning of the normal baby’s heart was being affected adversely. It had infact brought her on the brink of heart failure,” Dr Pradhan added.

Notably, in a normal pregnancy, the head and heart of a fetus start developing in the sixth week. Seen in one among 3-4 lakh expectant mothers in India, in such complication, the undeveloped twin called the acardia twin survives like a parasite that draws blood and nutrition from the normal twin.

“The challenge was to save the normal baby inside womb without any anaesthesia or an early birth. The doctors’ team decided to snap the connection between the twins through Radiofrequency Ablation (RFA). In this, a unique medical needle-like device is used to pass on medium frequency electrical current to targeted area for various purposes,” she explained.

“In this case, the connecting tissues supplying blood to the abnormal area inside the womb were burnt. This immediately saved the healthy baby from going into heart failure. Thereafter, the pregnancy was regularly monitored till childbirth and a baby girl was delivered in the wee hours of Wednesday,” said Dr Pradhan.

The baby girl’s father Nishant Pandey said: “The testing time and sleepless nights are over. I am happy that our patience and trust over the doctors paid off.”

“The baby would have died and my wife Ankita’s health would have gone for a toss too. So we decided to go with whatever option was available to us. In fact, I can say that there was hardly any choice to make,” he added.

