Jadon and Anias McDonald are a pair of formerly conjoined craniopagus twins. They were separated by Dr. James Goodrich and a team of forty doctors in a nearly 30 hour surgery on October 14, 2016 [1] at Children's Hospital at Montefiore when they were thirteen months old. [2] [1] [3]
Less than a year after they were separated, they returned home to their house in New York's Orange County to live with parents, Nicole and Chrisitian, and older brother, Aza before relocating to Indiana in late 2018. [4] [5] Before they were separated, the boys and family lived in the Bronx, but their family purchased the home in foreclosure while the boys were in rehab at Blythedale Children's Hospital. [5] At home, they had 20 hours a week of in-home therapy. [1]
Separated: Saving the Twins is the story of their separation and recovery. [4]
Conjoined twins – popularly referred to as Siamese twins – are twins joined in utero. It is a very rare phenomenon, estimated to occur in anywhere between one in 49,000 births to one in 189,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence in Southwest Asia and Africa. Approximately half are stillborn, and an additional one-third die within 24 hours. Most live births are female, with a ratio of 3:1.
Ladan and Laleh Bijani were Iranian conjoined twin sisters. They were joined at the head and died soon after their complicated surgical separation. Coincidentally, the twins were born a century to the day after the deaths of Chang and Eng Bunker, also conjoined twins, famously known as the "original" Siamese twins.
Texas Children's Hospital is a nationally ranked, freestanding 973-bed, acute care women's and children's hospital located in Houston, Texas. It is the primary pediatric teaching hospital affiliated with Baylor College of Medicine and is located within the Texas Medical Center. The hospital provides comprehensive pediatric specialty and subspecialty care to infants, children, teens, and young adults aged 0–21 throughout Texas and features an ACS verified level I pediatric trauma center. Its regional pediatric intensive-care unit and neonatal intensive care units serve the Southern United States region and also has programs to serve children from around the world. With 973 beds, it is the largest children's hospital in the United States.
Superfecundation is the fertilization of two or more ova from the same cycle by sperm from separate acts of sexual intercourse, which can lead to twin babies from two separate biological fathers. The term superfecundation is derived from fecund, meaning able to produce offspring. Homopaternal superfecundation is fertilization of two separate ova from the same father, leading to fraternal twins, while heteropaternal superfecundation is a form of atypical twinning where, genetically, the twins are half siblings – sharing the same mother, but with different fathers.
Clarence and Carl Aguirre are former conjoined twins born in Manila. They were conjoined at the top of the head and shared 8 centimeters of brain. More than 1—2 centimeters will affect brain functionality in one or both of twins. Without separation, they were expected to live around 6—8 months.
Kendra Deene Herrin and Maliyah Mae Herrin are former conjoined twins. They were separated in August 2006. They were the first set of conjoined twins to be separated to share a kidney. Kendra retained their shared kidney following the separation surgery, while Maliyah Herrin underwent dialysis until she was transplanted with a kidney donated by her mother in April 2007.
Krista and Tatiana Hogan are Canadians who are conjoined craniopagus twins. They are joined at the head and share a brain. They were born in Vancouver, British Columbia, and are the only unseparated conjoined twins of that type currently alive in Canada. They live with their mother, Felicia Simms, in Vernon, British Columbia, have two sisters and a brother and often travel to Vancouver for care at BC Children's Hospital and Sunny Hill Health Centre for Children.
Anastasia and Tatiana Dogaru are craniopagus conjoined twins. They were scheduled to begin the first of several surgeries to separate them at Rainbow Babies and Children's Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio. However, in August 2007 the surgery was called off as too dangerous.
Babies switched at birth are babies who, because of either error or malice, are interchanged with each other at birth or very soon thereafter, leading to the babies being unknowingly raised by parents who are not their biological parents. The occurrence has historically rarely been discovered in real life, but in recent years is becoming more commonly identified due to genealogical testing of DNA, which reveals true genetic parentage. The phenomenon has been common as a plot device in novels and films, such as the TV series Switched at Birth and Autumn in My Heart.
Ronald Lee Galyon and Donald Lee Galyon were conjoined twins. According to the 2009 Guinness World Records, the Galyons were the oldest living set of conjoined twins in the world, and, as of 29 October 2014, possessed the world record for the longest-lived conjoined twins in history when they surpassed prior record holders Chang and Eng Bunker.
Lakshmi Tatma is an Indian girl born in 2005 in a village in Araria district, Bihar, with "4 arms and 4 legs." She was actually one of a pair of ischiopagus conjoined twins, one of which was headless because its head had atrophied and chest had not fully developed in the womb, causing the appearance of one child with four arms and four legs. She has undergone surgery to remove these extra limbs.
Wirginia June Maixner is an Australian neurosurgeon and the director of neurosurgery at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, Australia. She is known for having performed the first auditory brainstem implant on a child in Australia in 2007, and later having separated the conjoined twins, Trishna and Krishna in 2009.
Craniopagus twins are conjoined twins that are fused at the cranium. The union may occur on any portion of the cranium, but does not primarily involve either the face or the foramen magnum; their brains are usually separate, but they may share some brain tissue. Conjoined twins are genetically identical and always share the same sex. The thorax and abdomen are separate and each twin has its own umbilicus and umbilical cord.
Maria and Teresa Tapia are formerly conjoined twins born in the Dominican Republic. The twins were joined by their lower chest and abdomen and were therefore classified as omphalopagus, sharing a liver, pancreas, and a small portion of their small intestine. On November 7, 2011, the twins underwent successful separation surgery at the Children's Hospital of Richmond in Virginia.
Anthony David Holmes AO is a plastic and reconstructive surgeon. His most high-profile surgery was in 2009 when he worked with a large team of experts to separate the Bangladeshi conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna.
James Tait Goodrich was an American neurosurgeon. He was the director of the Division of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Montefiore Health System and Professor of Clinical Neurological Surgery, Pediatrics, Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and gained worldwide recognition for performing multiple successful separations of conjoined twins. He assisted in two craniopagus separations with Dr. Alferayan A in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with the first one done May 5, 2014 and the second one done February 14, 2016. Both pairs were successfully separated and are doing well.
Johns Hopkins Children's Center (JHCC) is a nationally ranked, pediatric acute care children's teaching hospital located in Baltimore, Maryland, adjacent to Johns Hopkins Hospital. The hospital has 196 pediatric beds and is affiliated the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The hospital is the flagship pediatric member of Johns Hopkins Medicine and is 1 of 2 children's hospital in the network. The hospital provides comprehensive pediatric specialties and subspecialties to infants, children, teens, and young adults aged 0–21 throughout Baltimore and the wider United States. Johns Hopkins Children's Center also sometimes treats adults that require pediatric care. Johns Hopkins Children's Center also features the only ACS verified Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Center in the state. The hospital is directly attached to Johns Hopkins Hospital and is situated near the Ronald McDonald House of Maryland.
Children's Hospital of Richmond at VCU (CHoR) is a nationally ranked pediatric acute care children's hospital located within VCU Medical Center in Richmond, Virginia. The hospital has 144 pediatric beds. It is affiliated with The Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, and is a member of VCU Health. The hospital provides comprehensive pediatric specialties and subspecialties to infants, children, teens, and young adults aged 0–21 throughout eastern Virginia. CHOR also has a helipad to transport critically ill pediatric patients. Children's Hospital of Richmond features the only pediatric Level 1 Trauma Center in the region and the state.
Dr Noor ul Owase Jeelani BMed.Sci (Hons), BMBS, MRCS, MBA, MPhil, FRCS (NeuroSurg.) is a Kashmiri-British neurosurgeon and academic. He is a Consultant Paediatric Neurosurgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children (GOSH) and was the Head of the Department of Neurosurgery from 2012 until 2018. He is an Honorary Associate Professor at the Institute of Child Health, University College London. He leads the FaceValue research group in Craniofacial Morphometrics, device design, and clinical outcomes.
András Csókay is a Hungarian neurosurgeon with international recognition in the field of neurosurgery for his development of a technique to enhance microsurgical precision in the vascular tunnel and for the separation of a pair of Bangladeshi (Islam) Craniopagus Twins.