Doctors separate 6-day old conjoined twin girls in S China

NANNING, July 19 (Xinhua) -- Doctors in south China have succeeded in separating a pair of six-day-old conjoined twins, but they both remain in a critical condition.

After a six-hour operation from about 8:00 p.m.

Tuesday to 2:00a.m.

Wednesday, four doctors at the No.

303 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army separated the twin's livers, repositioned the girls' hearts and divided a shared intestine.

The girls, who spent their first six days with their noses just inches apart, could finally sleep in separate incubators in intensive care on Wednesday in Nanning, capital of south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

"However, they are critically ill and we expect them to stay that way for the next seven days," said Dr Shi Dekun, the lead surgeon.

He said the girls then could hopefully come off ventilators.

"It is very rare for newborns to undergo such complicated surgery, a challenge for both the girls and our doctors," said Shi.

Shi said that, in an ideal situation, the surgery would have been performed when the twins were two months old but, in this case, one or both of the girls may have died if they had waited.

When the girls were born on July 11, they shared a common pericardium and part of a liver and intestine.