Twins joined at the head, separated

New York: Jadon and Anias McDonald, 13-month-old twins conjoined at the head, were successfully separated on Friday in New York. It took nearly 16.5 hours for the boys to be separated and was followed by several hours more of surgery to reconstruct their skulls and make them whole.

Jadon was the first of the boys to be finished, the CNN reported. He was wheeled out of the operating room, his perfectly shaped head wrapped in white gauze.

“My boy,” Christian McDonald, the twins’ father said with tears in his eyes.
The CNN reported that the surgery was led by Dr. James Goodrich who is considered the leading expert on craniopagus surgery. This was Goodrich's seventh separation surgery and just the 59th craniopagus separation surgery in the world since 1952, it said.

It was an agonizing decision for Nicole and Christian McDonald to opt for the procedure which carried major risks, including the possibility of death or long-term brain damage for one or both boys.

After the twins were successfully separated, Nicole wrote on Facebook: “TWO SEPARATE BABIES!!!...and yet I ache with the uncertainty of the future. I didn't cry until the surgeons left the room. I was barely able to even utter the words 'thank you' because of the pit that still sits heavy in my stomach. We are standing on the brink of a vast unknown. The next few months will be critical in terms of recovery and we will not know for sure how Anias and Jadon are recovering for many weeks.”

Before mid-1980s, it was accepted medical practice to sacrifice one child on the operating table to save the life of the other. Many times both babies died. If one child made it through surgery, he or she often suffered debilitating brain damage.
Dr Goodrich has pioneered the field of craniopagus surgery. He established the practice of performing the separation of craniopagus twins in several shorter stages, instead of one single operation lasting more than 50 hours.