Mar 7, 2006 12:47 pm US/Central
Conjoined Twins Get Skin Expanders
Rochester, Minn. (AP) ―
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Abby and Belle Carlsen
CBS
Doctors have inserted four silicone pouches under the skin of conjoined twins Abby and Belle Carlsen to prepare them for separation surgery.
The girls, whose parents are Amy and Jesse Carlsen of Fargo, N.D., were born last November in Minneapolis, joined from mid-chest to their navels. They are preparing for separation surgery at the Mayo Eugenio Litta Children's Hospital.
The incisions to insert the silicone pouches will heal in about two weeks, doctors said. A sterile saline solution will be injected into the pouches every two or three days to gradually stretch the girls' skin.
Doctors expect it will take at least four weeks for the skin to expand enough for separation surgery.
Each baby will need up to 12 centimeters of skin to cover wounds caused by the separation surgery, and the pouches eventually will have to create a dome of skin on each side of the girls, doctors said.
"They'll look like Weebles," plastic surgeon Dr. Ricky Clay said, referring to the popular egg-shaped toys.
The process will not be painful for the girls, but it will be more difficult for people to hold the twins as the domes grow, he said.
The pouches -- initially about the size of a business card -- were filled Monday with about an ounce of saline solution.
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According to the Mayo Clinic, conjoined twins are extremely rare, occurring once in every 200,000 births.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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