One-year-old twin Israeli girls who were born conjoined at the head, back to back, have now made eye contact for the first time after undergoing a rare separation surgery.
The more than 12-hour operation at the Soroka Medical Centre, Beersheba, Israel took months of preparation and involved dozens of experts in the country and abroad, the hospital announced on Sunday, September 5.
The one-year-old girls, whose names were not released to media, were born with the rear parts of their heads conjoined.
“This was a rare and complex surgery that has been conducted only 20 times worldwide and now, for the first time, in Israel,” said Mickey Gideon, Soroka’s chief pediatric neurosurgeon.
Photos in Israeli media showed the twins – whose names were not provided – facing one another in a cot, their heads bandaged. The hospital’s statement said the surgery involved cranial reconstruction and scalp grafts for both.
“They are recovering nicely. They are breathing and eating on their own,” Eldad Silberstein, the head of Soroka’s plastic surgery department, told Israel’s Channel 12 news.
