Formerly conjoined twins Moni and Mukta lying on the bed of Dhaka Shishu Hospital after being separated yesterday. Photo: Shawkat Jamil

Doctors at Dhaka Shishu Hospital yesterday separated conjoined twins Moni and Mukta in the third such operation performed successfully in Bangladesh.

Before the surgery, the around six-month-old two sisters were conjoined at the lower part of their chests and abdomens.

The separation of the twins was carried out by a 10-member team of surgeons and anesthetists led by Prof AR Khan, head of surgery of the hospital.

They were kept at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit of the hospital after the operation from 9:45am to 12:00noon.

AR Khan told the reporters that they need another two to three days to comment on the separated twins.

The hospital authorities are bearing the whole expenditure of Moni and Mukta's treatment.

On August 22 last year, Trishna Pal, wife of Joyprokash Pal, of Palpara village in Birganj upazila of Dinajpur, gave birth to the twins by caesarean at a local clinic.

The babies were brought to the capital for treatment on January 31 and admitted to the hospital.

After successful completion of the operation, the mother said she had been afraid if such operation could be possible.

She said, after the children's birth, she had received negative responses from the doctors of the clinic and thus she had feared for their [children] post-operation survival.

Besides, she said she was aware of the twin babies in her womb by the ultra sonogram report, but after delivery she found them to be conjoined twins.

She has another two kids, Sajal, 12, and Disha Rani, 8, she added.

Experts say, when an embryo begins to split into identical twins but stops midway leaving the partially separated egg to mature, it results in conjoined twins.

Family history, delayed pregnancy and having birth control pills for long time increase the risk of giving birth to such babies, they say.

In August 2008, Banya and Barsha were separated at Bangabandhu Shiekh Mujib Medical University (BSMMU) Hospital by a team of Prof Shafiqul Haque, chairman of the department of paediatrics. Though Barsha died within a very short time after the operation, Banya survived well.

Earlier, Ruhul Amin, associate professor of paediatrics surgery of BSMMU, successfully separated another conjoined twins, Hasan and Hossain, at Islami Bank Hospital in 2003.

Survival of conjoined twins is very rare in Bangladesh. A total of three such twins were admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital in the last three and a half years, but none of them survived.

Statistics show that only a few hundred conjoined twins are born across the globe each year, which is about one in every 100,000 births.