Nepali twins recovering well after separation

Before surgery the twins with parents and carers

SINGAPORE -- Nepali twin sisters, separated in a marathon surgery procedure last week, are recovering well in Singapore, doctors say.

One of the sisters, eleven-month-old Ganga Shrestha, will probably stay on a respirator until the weekend as she battles an infection, a surgeon at the Singapore General Hospital said Thursday.

Ganga and her sister Jamuna were conjoined at the head and had two brains intertwined in one skull until they were separated on April 10 in a painstaking operation that took nearly four days.

Although the girls are conscious, it may be several more days before doctors can assess how well their brains are working.

"I can safely say that Jamuna is doing very well. She's already been off the ventilator for more than 48 hours," Keith Goh, the pediatric neurosurgeon who lead the operation, said.

"She's moving both her right and left arms and legs . . . better than we expected and she's beginning to play with her parents."

The twins, who were put in a drug-induced sleep for a week to allow their vital signs to stabilize, were taken off sedation after their head wounds were found to be healing on Tuesday.

"For Ganga, because she has an infection, it's going to be a bit longer before we get to a point when we can really do a detailed neurological exam," Goh said.

"But so far she's moving both sides."

Doctors at Singapore General Hospital hope to take Ganga off the respirator and allow her to breathe on her own by this weekend, he added.

The twins were stirring in their cots even while sedated, a sign doctors said that there was no major brain damage.

Twins conjoined at the head are rare, occurring only once in about two million live births.

Successful surgery to separate them is even rarer.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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