HOUSTON — Two 10-month-old girls born conjoined are now separated after a very delicate surgery and miracle procedure.
The surgery was performed by doctors at Texas Children’s Hospital.
Knatalye Hope and Adeline Faith Mata will live separate lives in separate bodies.
Last Tuesday a team of 12 surgeons, six anesthesiologists and eight surgical nurses worked to separate the girls who shared a chest wall, lungs, diaphragm, intestines and pelvis.
Monday morning, for the first time, doctors confidently declared a surgery of this magnitude a success.
Before now the doctors never let on just how much was on the line.
“We had some challenges there we had to work through but thanks to Dr. Mackenzie our pediatric heart surgeon things are looking good now,” Darrell Lorne Cass, MD of Texas Children’s Hospital told KPRC.
“This is the first time a separation surgery for thoraco-omphalo-ischiopagus twins with this particular configuration has been successful,” said Dr. Cass, “Our team has been preparing for this surgery for months and we’ve done everything from working with our radiology experts to build a 3-D model of their organs, to conducting simulations of the actual separation surgery.”
During the complex surgery, the team worked for approximately 23 hours on Knatalye and 26 hours on Adeline with the official separation occurring approximately 18 hours into the surgery.
It is anticipated they will undergo additional surgeries in the future. But for now the family is just happy to keep reliving the moment they found out they finally had two baby girls.
The girls will stay at the hospital until they are strong enough to leave.
They turn 1 year old in April and have never left the hospital.
