Before telling you the incredible story of the twins, I’d like to thank Stephen Moyer for getting us involved with the Facing The World. We are so happy to be able to contribute to the medical miracles performed by the team of Facing The World.
The Vault and AllStephenMoyer.com support them through Facing The Atlantic; the two men rowing expedition of Stephen’s friends Bertie and James that will take them across the Atlantic Ocean to raise funds for Facing The World.
Please consider to join the many fans who have already made a donation, together we have already raised over $10,000 for Facing the World. No amount is too small.
You too can give to Facing the Atlantic and support Stephen Moyer’s charity by making a direct donation to Facing The Atlantic here http://www.justgiving.com/Facingtheatlantic
Please note: add the code TB4FTA (True Blood for Facing The Atlantic) to the note of your donation so we can keep track of how much was donated by True Blood / Stephen Moyer fans.
From the Daily Mail:
A team of British doctors has made medical history by separating twins who were born joined at the head.
In the most successful operation of its kind ever, baby girls Rital and Ritaj Gaboura, who are now 11 months old, were separated after the last of four complex procedures at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London.
The infants were born with the tops of their heads fused – an extremely rare condition that only one in ten million survive.
Little miracles: Sisters Ritaj (left) and Rital Gaboura after their successful operation
Their skulls were joined into one and, although they did not share brain tissue, they did share vital arteries and nerves. Because there was significant blood flow between their brains, their condition was particularly complicated to treat.
Ritaj supplied half of her sister’s brain with blood, while draining most of it back to her own heart and her body was, therefore, doing most of the work for both of them.
Any significant drop in blood pressure caused by surgery would have caused severe neurological damage.
However, after four months in hospital and surgery involving top specialists in craniofacial techniques, neurology, cardiology and radiology, doctors believe the babies have made a good recovery after the final operation last month.
It is so far thought they have suffered no neurological side effects, which makes the procedure the most successful ever carried out.
The children were born by caesarean section in October 2010 in Khartoum, Sudan. Both their parents are doctors. Their father, Abdelmajeed Gaboura, 31, is a specialist in obstetrics and gynaecology, and their mother, Enas, 27, is still in training.
Because there was no expertise to successfully separate the girls in Sudan, and the couple could not afford to pay for their treatment abroad, they approached British children’s charity Facing the World.
The charity agreed to fund their care after doctors at Great Ormond Street volunteered to treat the children. The family arrived in the UK in April.
Last night the girls’ parents told The Mail on Sunday: ‘We are very thankful to be able to look forward to going home with two separate, healthy girls. We are very grateful to all the doctors who volunteered their time and to Facing the World for organising all the logistics and for paying for the surgery.
‘We feel very lucky that our girls have been able to have the surgery that they needed, but we also know of other children who need complete sponsorship and families who are searching for someone to help them.’
David Dunaway, from the plastic surgery and craniofacial unit at Great Ormond Street, led the separation of the twins. The hospital will be releasing further details on how the girls were separated tomorrow.
Conjoined twins are very rare and occur in about one in 100,000 births. They develop when one fertilised egg fails to separate fully, or the egg separates and then fuses together again inside the womb. Those joined at the head – known as craniopagus twins – are even rarer and make up just five per cent of conjoined twins.
Of those, nearly half will be stillborn or die during labor and a further third will die within 24 hours.
For such infants to survive early infancy has been calculated to be a one in ten million occurrence.
Sarah Driver-Jowitt, executive co-ordinator at Facing the World, said the charity was delighted to have been able to help the Gaboura family.
She said: ‘We are so grateful to the team at Great Ormond Street Hospital and all of our supporters for making this miracle possible.’
The last known British-born conjoined twins, Jayden and Joshua Chamberlain, were born in July 2009 joined face-to-face and sharing a liver and a heart. Joshua was stillborn and Jayden died shortly after birth.
