Brahmapur: A rare pair of male conjoined twins born with two heads and a single torso died during treatment at the MKCG Medical College and Hospital in Odisha’s Brahmapur on Sunday, after seven days of intensive care.
Delivered on October 11 via a premature lower-segment Caesarean section under spinal anaesthesia, the newborn—weighing 2.25 kg, was born to a 22-year-old first-time mother and a daily-wage labourer from Gummu Gram Panchayat under Tumudibandh block in Kandhamala district. Medically diagnosed as dicephalic parapagus, an exceptionally rare condition that occurs in approximately one out of every 300,000 births, the infants had two distinct heads, necks, and spinal columns attached to a shared torso, two arms, two legs, male external genitalia, and lacked an anal opening.
Following delivery at around 32 weeks of gestation, the baby was immediately transferred to the hospital’s Special Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) where a multidisciplinary medical team closely monitored vital parameters, including heart rate and breathing, as respiratory complications quickly developed. Diagnostic evaluations revealed that the twins shared a single heart and liver along with other internal structures, rendering surgical separation impossible and creating severe medical complications.
Hospital superintendent Professor Sudeepa Das had earlier noted the anomaly as likely the first of its kind recorded at the institution, while paediatric surgery head Dr Manas Ranjan Sahu emphasised that survival in such lateral fusion cases depends entirely on organ viability and functional independence, though most affected infants are stillborn or die shortly after birth.
The tragedy brought back memories of Jaga and Balia, the craniopagus conjoined twins from Kandhamala district who underwent a historic 40-hour separation surgery at AIIMS New Delhi in 2017. Balia later succumbed to septicaemia in 2020 while Jaga continues rehabilitation.