twins share single heart -1

Birth defects like the Mermaid syndrome, a deformity where the legs are fused together, Craniopagus, a phenomenon where twins are joined at the head, and Dicephalic parapagus, a condition of having two heads, occur rarely but prove challenging to the medical world. Recently in Brazil, a baby was born with two heads; Jesus and Emanuel are in stable condition, but doctors are hesitant to perform surgery is such delicate conditions. More images on these rare congenital disorders.

 

A two-headed born baby is pictured in Anajas, northern Brazil December 21, 2011. Doctors in Brazil said on Wednesday said they are unsure whether they can operate on a baby born with two heads, although the newborn boy is in stable condition. The "twins", named Jesus and Emanuel, have two brains, two backbones and a single heart. REUTERS/JR Avelar/Handout

 

The abandoned baby boy with the rare "mermaid syndrome", a defect in which the legs are born fused together, at the Hunan Provincial Children's Hospital in Changsha, central China's Hunan province 16 November 2006.

  Maria de Guadalupe Angolo and Maria de Jesus Angolo, a two-headed infant is attended to by a nurse at the Hospital Infantil August 2, 1996, in Mexico City. She was born July 26, 1996, in Tijuna Mexico. The newborn is in critical but stable condition, and has only one thorax, a single heart, intestines and a single set of legs and arms. Doctors have said separation surgery is out of the question. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

 Housewife Radha Gupta holds her one month-old Siamese twins, Radha, left, and Krishna, in her in-laws' house on the outskirts of Bombay Monday Feb. 8, 1999.

 Undated handout photo released Sunday Sept.18, 2011 by British charity Facing the World of conjoined twins Rital and Ritag Gaboura (left to right not given) before they were successfully separated at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. Facing the World says Rital and Ritag Gaboura were born in Sudan with the tops of their heads stuck together.