Siamese Twins Stable, Sharing Two Vital Organs
Rodolfo Hernández Gómez, medical director of Hospital Nacional de Niños, says that it will be very difficult to separate the Siamese twins born yesterday, delivered by Ceasarean section yesterday morning and are attached at the chest.

During the last stages of pregnancy, doctors believed that the babies share no vital organs.

"The little girls share two vital organs: the righ ventrical of the heart and the liver. We have not yet determined if they can be separated", said Hernández.

The twins were born at 11:15am yesterday at the chidlren's hospital and weighed a total of 5 kilograms. The twins are in stable condition and are being kept in an incubator in the intevise care of the neonatal section of the hospital.

Hernández recognized that there isn't enough experience in Costa Rica to perform such a complex separation. He added that this is the eight case of Siamese twins and in four cases the babies died within months of birth.

In this case Hernández added that the twins will die within months if they are not separated.

In Costa Rica, Siamese twins are born for every 100.000 births while the average is one per 50.000 in other countries, according to Hernández.

The first case of Siamese twins in Costa Rica was recorded in 1977 born in La Cruz, Guanacaste, and died several days after birth. In 1998, in Guápiles, the twins died within 24 hours of birth. The last case of Siamese twins was in 2002, born in the Hospital de las Mujeres, shared a heart and died four months after birth.