THE US: Sedated, their heads swathed in gauze, the Guatemalan twins who underwent surgery to separate them at the head began their first full day of independence yesterday.
The 13-month-olds were in critical but stable condition in a paediatric ward at the University of California-Los Angeles children's hospital a day after the 22-hour surgery, hospital officials said.
The surgeons who headed up the 50-person medical team that performed the risky procedure said they were "cautiously optimistic" about the twins' prospects, but warned the girls would likely experience some mental deficits as a result of the operation.
Mr Henry Kawamoto, director of plastic surgery, told CNN's American Morning: "I think if all goes to plan, they will heal everything well . . . at least that's what we are hoping for."
But his colleague, Mr Jorge Lazareff, a paediatric neurosurgeon, said the girls may suffer some slight brain damage as a result of the surgery. "It is possible that they will not reach the milestones of the second year of life as rapidly as any other child would," he told the same show.
But "the plasticity of their brains will allow them to recover most of the function they may have lost during this medical procedure," he said. "I am absolutely sure that by the time they are five years . . . they will have reached those milestones."
Maria Teresa and Maria de Jesus Quiej Alvare were separated on Tuesday, after surgery to sever and reroute shared veins, as well as reconstructive surgery. Doctors had practised for weeks on a $10,000, life-size model. - (AFP)