One of the Guatemalan toddlers who endured a marathon separation surgery from her twin sister in Los Angeles yesterday was back in surgery hours later because of complications, a hospital official said.
The 20-hour operation at the University of California-Los Angeles Children's Hospital went well, but yesterday morning 13-month-old Maria Teresa was back in the operating room because of a subdural haematoma, hospital director Mr Michael Karpf said. The haematoma, "a collection of blood underneath the skull", needed to be dealt with "to make sure that the pressure doesn't build up in the skull", Mr Karpf said.
"This was not necessarily an unexpected complication; Dr Jorge Lazareff has said that he thinks this will be manageable and that he still feels that the surgery can be quite successful for Maria Teresa," he said.
Her sister Maria de Jesus was progressing well under observation in the intensive care unit, Mr Karpf said. Maria Teresa and Maria de Jesus Quiej Alvarez, born to 22-year-old Ms Leticia Dawn Alvarez on July 25th, 2001, were separated at dawn yesterday after more than 20 hours of surgery involving almost 50 medical personnel. "Everyone had goose bumps at the end of the procedure. People were cheering, people were clapping, people were crying," Dr Houman Hemmati told NBC's Today show yesterday. "We can't wait till we see these kids playing, laughing, crying like normal baby children," Dr Hemmati said. Births of conjoined twins occur once in about 200,000 births. - (AFP)