Meet the girls with two head but shares the same body....Abigail and Brittany Hensel are conjoined twins from Minnesota...Soon after they were born, doctors gave their parents the bad news; the twins would not survive very long. The girls are now 25 years old but featured in a show titled: Abby and Brittany, which will show viewers how their every days lives are. Read more after the cut
It is very rare to be born conjoined (1 in 40,000) and it is even more rare to survive after birth (1% of the 1 in 40,000)! The fact that Abby and Brittany are alive and well is a miracle.
Abby and Brittany came to be when a fertilized egg failed to separate inside the womb.
They have two hearts, two spines joined at the pelvis, four lungs, two esophagi, three kidneys, one ribcage, one liver, a partially shared nervous system and a shared circulatory system. From their waist down, all organs are shared including the reproductive system, intestines and bladder. Abby, the right twin can’t feel anything on the left side of body while Brittany, the left twin can’t feel anything on her right side.
Despite the fact that the twins can only feel their half of the body they share, they still are able to type, play piano, bowl, play volleyball, ride a bicycle, play softball, and swim, etc.
They were actually born with three arms, one arm was removed surgically at the time of birth. During their life, they have been operated on several times, but the twins have remained in good health.
The twins have been in the media several times in their lives. At the age of six, they appeared in Oprah Winfrey show and on the cover of Life magazine. They stayed out of the media for 10 years, and then when they were 16 the girls were filmed for a TLC documentary. If features them passing their driver’s test; each twin controls the steering wheel with one arm. Their mother wondered which twin would get the speeding ticket if they were ever pulled over.
The girls have to coordinate everything together and they don’t always have the urge to eat or sleep at the same time either.
Their parents have encouraged the twins to develop individual
personalities. They have exposed the twins to the media, but have
purposely kept it limited for the sake of the girls and their other 2
Although the two girls are individuals and they have the urge to sleep
and eat at different times, they still coordinate among themselves to
work as a single body.
Clothes have to be made special order for the twins because they have 2
necklines. In order to show their own styling and tastes, the girls have
leggings made with different colors on each leg. They wear different
shoes on each foot for the same reasoning as well.
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