CONJOINED TWINS Kara Brady

WHAT ARE CONJOINED TWINS?  Twins are connected through the skin, organs, or other part of the body because they failed to separate  They did not create their own placenta in the womb  Separating the twins is difficult because they typically share vital organs making survival rates low  In some cases are parasitic, where one twin is healthier than the other  The twins body must work especially hard to support both persons  Separation is encouraged in these cases to save the healthy twin  Unfortunately, the life expectancy of conjoined twins is found to be lower than that of twins that are separated

KRISTA AND TATIANA HOGAN  They are craniopagus conjoined twins  They are connected at the head and share a brain  Neural bridge connects one thalamus to the other  They share a bridge of neural tissues  They are 4 years old  Tatiana has an enlarged heart which pumps most of Krista’s blood to her brain  They previously suffered seizures but have been put on medication to prevent them  Their nervous systems are interconnected causing them to feel what their twin feels like a tickled  Research showed that they cannot be separated because one or both girls would be left paralyzed

ABIGAIL AND BRITTANY HENSEL  They are 21 year old dicephalic parapagus twins, meaning their heads are separated but their bodies are conjoined  They each have a separate heart, spine, spinal cord, and stomach  They can operate their side of their body, each controlling either one arm or one leg.  They can eat and write on their own  They must do things like running and driving together (they did pass their drivers test)  They graduated high school and attended Bethel University  They do not want to take part in any medical studies and are doing their very best to live ordinary lives  Brittany is recently engaged to be married

CHANG AND ENG BUNKER  Conjoined twins connected at the sternum through cartilage  Their lives are independent but are fused together  They could have been easily separated but that was not an option in the 1800s  They had their own plantation, married sisters, and had 21 children between the two of them  Chang died from pneumonia in his sleep, Eng refused to have an emergency separation and died three hours later

PHYSIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS  The connection between the twins is where most of the problems arouse  They may share vital organs  One twin’s body must do more work to support both bodies  If the heart of one twin is stronger it must pump more blood resulting in high blood pressure  If they share vital organs, they cannot be separated without possible deaths  They can suffer from seizures  Their bodies tend to be disproportional  They must go attend frequent checkups to monitor their condition

WHAT I FOUND MOST INTERESTING IN THE ARTICLE  Vision  When shown a red crayon, one twin said blue, when shown a purple crayon, the other twin said red. Maybe their switch them because of what their twin is seeing  The girls do however have eye problems and have been instructed to use glasses and eye patches to prevent them from potentially becoming legally blind  Taste Buds  Conjoined twins can taste what their twin is tasting even if they don’t like it. I was curious as to what they would taste if they were both eating different things

The Hogan girls future…  I am curious to see how the twin girls will develop in the future  If they continue to “tune in” to their sister, will it be easier for them to do so in the future  Will their brain develop and grow in a way that makes the girls even more similar  I wonder how their education will pan out  Will they be able to attend college like the Hensel girls did?  The family plans to have a reality show in the future and I hope that they are not poorly effected by the spotlight