health

The prognosis of conjoined twins is often poor. Between 40 and 80 percent
of twins who need emergency surgery after birth die in intensive care
following the operation. In some cases, particularly those involving parasitic
twins, the parents must make the painful decision to allow one of
the twins to die if the other is to have any chance of survival. Conjoined
twins who are healthy enough to have separation surgery postponed until
they are older have a survival rate of 80 percent.
It is possible for conjoined twins who are not separated to have productive
and satisfying lives. One set of conjoined twins in Minnesota
completed high school in 2008 and obtained a driver’s license. One twin
in a set of conjoined sisters has made a career as a country music singer.
Conjoined twins who are not separated, however, have shortened life
expectancies; most pairs die in their twenties or early thirties. As of
2008, the oldest known living set of conjoined twins was a pair of
brothers in Ohio born in 1951.