Baby Born With Two Faces In Australia Fights For Survival

Hope and Faith Young were born last week in Australia but they’re pretty much different to every set of identical twins that have ever existed because they suffer from a condition called diprosopus which means that although they share the same internal organs, body and head, they have two separate brains and faces inside one skull.

There have only ever been 35 other cases of this in history – and only 16 in the last 150 years – and nobody really knows how or why it happens or how the twins will develop because of this. The last case happened in India in 2008, but because the residents of the village believed that it was the reincarnation of the goddess Ganesh, they refused all medical help and the baby died within two months.

Most babies with the condition are stillborn so the fact that these girls have been alive for six days and have a steady heartbeat and are breathing on their own is great news for them, although it seems unlikely they will survive to live long and fruitful lives. Their progress has surprised medical experts though so there is still hope for them yet. I’m sure everyone is keeping their fingers crossed for them.

Their parents – Simon Howie and Renee Young, who already have seven children – are remarkably calm about the situation and just saying that they’re taking each day as it comes: ‘if we only have two days with the girls then at least we have two days with the girls.’ They knew that the twins would be conjoined early on in the pregnancy but elected to continue with it despite this and the advice of expert doctors, which is truly heartwarming. Let’s hope that their decision is vindicated and Hope and Faith can pull through.

You can check out a news report from Australia about it all below. It includes an interview with the parents too:

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