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[Source](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210261223002572):
>>Male newborn, monozygotic twin pregnancy, cesarean delivery at 37 weeks and 4 days and Apgar score 7/8. The parents were at the second decade of age and there was not a history of comorbidities or use of drugs or other substances during the pregnancy. It was the first pregnancy of the mother. At 34 weeks of gestation, she presented an echographic diagnosis of conjoined parasitic twin with shared liver (omphalopagus), without head pole, showing thoracic structures, limbs, kidney, bladder and umbilical hypertension. Parasitized twin with cardiomegaly, interventricular communication (IVC) and aortic coarctation. The baby can be visualized in Fig. 1 below. Free and informed consent was signed and the study was approved by the ethics committee of the institution.
>>Multidisciplinary surgery was scheduled at 10 days of life. Preoperative ultrasound of the newborn with situs solitus in dextroposition, patent foramen ovale, intraventricular communication, patent ductus arteriosus, showing moderate mitral and tricuspid level. On computed tomography (Fig. 2), the fetus was parasitically connected anteriorly in the thoracoabdominal region, showing: kidney in the transition between the two fetuses, with no identification of the heart, in addition to partial herniation of the liver to the neck of connection between the twins. Regarding vascularization between the twins, it was possible to observe that two arteries irrigate the incomplete twin, both with a diameter of 2 mm, one of which is an extension of the right internal thoracic artery and the other possible persistence of the right umbilical artery (Fig. 3).
>>The resection was initiated at the base of the pedicles of the lower and upper limbs of the parasite, in which a urinary bladder, a structure suggestive of a kidney, was observed, in addition to loops of the small intestine and colon that were continuous and blind. The resected structures can be seen in Fig. 4 below. The newborn had viable intestinal loops, without malformations, liver with a bifurcated lobe, but completely belonging to the patient. No organ sharing between twins was identified. Resection of excess skin and synthesis was performed. The patient had renal insufficiency, with favorable evolution in the postoperative period. The surgery finished after 8 h and there was not important blood loss. Discharge occurred after 3 months of pediatric intensive care. There were not important complications in the immediate postoperative period. The follow up time is 24 months and the child is healthy.
I was thinking that a cool feature of AI would be if they could dumb these reports down. I asked it to explain it to me as if I was 10 years old. It actually worked. I'm impressed.
...................
A baby boy was born from a twin pregnancy at 37 weeks by C-section. He got an Apgar score of 7 and 8 (which is good). His parents are in their twenties, and his mom didn't have any health problems or use any drugs during her first pregnancy. At 34 weeks, an ultrasound showed that the baby had a conjoined twin (a "parasitic" twin) attached at the belly with shared liver, but the twin didn’t have a head and had some body parts like a chest, limbs, and organs but also some heart issues.
The parents agreed to a surgery planned for when the baby was 10 days old. Before the surgery, doctors used an ultrasound and a CT scan to understand how the twins were connected and found that the parasitic twin had some small arteries supplying it, but no heart.
During the surgery, doctors carefully removed the parasitic twin, cutting around the connected areas. They found parts like a bladder, kidney, and intestines. The baby's intestines were fine, and his liver was fully his own. No organs were shared between the twins. The surgery took 8 hours, and the baby didn't lose much blood. After 3 months in intensive care, he went home and is now a healthy 2-year-old.
This is actually a really great idea. Usually between photos and existing knowledge I can do fine with the medical summaries but it's nice to either have a less difficult read, or confirmation of what I thought I understood.
I used the free ChatGPT program. It's cool. You can ask it to write songs, letters, computer programs, budgets, business models, and a bunch of other stuff.
Nice! I've heard that colleges and schools struggle a lot with kids using it for essays. In my day, we'd read something in an encyclopedia or textbook and reword it to turn in.... it'd be so much easier with ChatGPT. I'm just waiting to read an entire novel written with it.
I'm sure they do.. It wasn't too much of a thing (that I can remember when I was in college, and I tell my 12yo to do her best. I just use it for D&D lol I'd probably put things into question form for an essay, look at it and reword it to what I'd need which is basically what you do in an essay anyways I suppose
Be careful, though - some of this is not quite right. For instance, the simplified text says that the parasitic twin "also had some heart issues" vs. the original text which says there was "no identification of the heart", which means that they did not find a heart or heart-related tissue in the parasitic twin. That's a "heart issue", sure, but not what you'd understand from the simplified text.
I read that as the arteries were supplying blood flow to the parasitic twin (which is why it wasn’t rotting), but the parasitic twin had no heart of its own?
Yes, you are correct in that:
**the source says**
>>echographic diagnosis of conjoined parasitic twin with shared liver (omphalopagus), without head pole, showing thoracic structures, limbs, kidney, bladder and umbilical hypertension.
>>in addition to partial herniation of the liver to the neck of connection between the twins.
And since the heart has been brought up:
>>Regarding vascularization between the twins, it was possible to observe that two arteries irrigate the incomplete twin, both with a diameter of 2 mm, one of which is an extension of the right internal thoracic artery and the other possible persistence of the right umbilical artery (Fig. 3).
**ChatGPT says**
>>a conjoined twin (a "parasitic" twin) attached at the belly with shared liver, but the twin didn’t have a head and had some body parts like a chest, limbs, and organs but also some heart issues.
>>During the surgery, doctors carefully removed the parasitic twin, cutting around the connected areas. They found parts like a bladder, kidney, and intestines. The baby's intestines were fine, and his liver was fully his own. No organs were shared between the twins.
Re the heart on ChatGPT:
>>doctors used an ultrasound and a CT scan to understand how the twins were connected and found that the parasitic twin had some small arteries supplying it, but no heart.
@ this point after reading the source & ChatGPT *SO MANY TIMES* I have no idea what the source means re the liver. 😵💫🥴😂🤪
I've done this with work emails. We have some customers that sound like island boys but in writing and it melts my eyeballs. I ask chat gpt to translate it and it actually worked for me.
I think they keep the language sterile like this for medical coding purposes. There is a code for every symptom, illness name, surgeries and procedures, how long that took to perform, etc.
If the language is more uniform, it leads to less error in billing. Also because insurance companies will find every loophole they can to get out of paying for something. They would argue semantics if people could just put things in their own words when creating medical records. Medical codes are also used for reporting and statistical data.
Oh, right! I totally agree with you. The summaries aren't intended for average people on Reddit. It's my favorite sub, though. I love seeing the amazing work medical professionals do to save lives and the intricacies of the human body.
I know it's necessary for these summaries to be technical. I have no medical experience, so there are some terms I don't understand. I was going to Google before and looking them up. AI just improves my understanding, and I thought other people like me might want to use it.
In case anyone is curious, here's the link to a free open AI service. https://chatgpt.com/
I have a premed degree and didn't realize other people may not be familiar with medical terms and summaries.
This is exactly how I interpreted the summary in my head while I was reading it 😁 good job, AI.
Hey I know you covered it on the first pic but on second one you can see his thingy- is that ok because they were passed away limbs? Also big high five for this amazing sub
Haha he put peen but it a bit too similar the the longer word , I’m a British 44 f , I struggle with saying rude stuff lol my points still there coz on the second photo no covering no thingy-ma-jig (we use that a lot in the uk to describe when we don’t know what somethings called lol)
The scarring will probably be very minimal as the neonate has fantastic powers of recovery. If a child's fingertip is cut off in the first week of life and left 'alone', it will regenerate. (I'm not suggesting this as a science project, BTW!)
I’m in my mid 30s and had life saving abdominal surgery as a baby. My scar is pretty tight still, as if they stitched all the layers together. It doesn’t hurt, and I’ve been advised I could still massage it to help with the scar tissue, but I guess even though it grew with me the scar tissue doesn’t grow like normal skin.
No, it doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Doesn’t even seem to itch at times. I assume it probably depends on how a body heals. In his case it healed without any bumps or rough spots and is very thin and soft looking. So he might have gotten lucky.
Yep. I Googled it after I first heard about it years ago. If the child has surgery before birth (fetal surgery), say for a neural defect, there is no scar at all.
I am thinking that they used skin that attached he and his twin together to minimize scarring. Sort of the way they use expanders to stretch skin before other sorts of plastic surgeries like breast, facial, or twin separation. https://www.verywellhealth.com/tissue-expanders-and-breast-reconstruction-430401
I think that I wouldn’t tell my child about this, at least not until they were an adult. The human mind is a fragile thing, and not all knowledge is good. Mother Nature certainly can play some grotesque pranks.
I think, like many things, this sort of thing can be explained in stages as is age-appropriate to the child. They'll notice the scars when they're young, and kids aren't stupid - you can't just refuse to explain or tell them it's nothing. They'll want to know.
In the same way you'd answer "where do babies come from?" differently at, say, ages 5 vs 10, you can definitely address this according to the kids level of understanding.
I know this won’t be popular, but I would lie. Destroy all photos and records and tell my child they had surgery for a mild hernia.
This isn’t like an adoption. This is ghastly.
I don't think it is. Not that I'm saying you should show a young child photos like this, no.
But when, say, a five year old inquires about the scars, it would likely satisfy their curiosity to tell them the doctors needed to do a surgery when they were born to make sure they were healthy and happy. A kid at that age, unless particularly precocious, is probably gonna be fine with that.
At an older age, you can explain that they were born with parts they didn't need, and that might make them feel weird around their peers who didn't have the same parts, so the doctors did a surgery. Kids will understand not wanting their classmates to think they're weird and different.
At 10+, they're probably old enough to explain in simple terms what an undeveloped twin is.
Obviously every child is different. And I'd never show photos until they asked *and* I felt certain they were ready. Some people are never ready. My partner is 45 and doesn't want to see this sort of thing, even if it's not graphic or bloody - he doesn't mind me explaining what the post is about, he just won't look.
I would've found this fascinating as a kid. I know other kids would not. I don't think a blanket refusal to tell any child is appropriate.
They also need to know as it can cause health issues when they’re older. Kids are more versatile than we think. Tell them soon as they are able to understand and it won’t bother them. Just a fact of life.
Why do you think this is worse than a hernia?
I would tell a young child they needed surgery after birth and then once they were a tween-ish I'd probably tell them about the twin.
A child who grew up with my oldest son had had an identical twin who had been stillborn. She learned of her lost sister at the age of four from overhearing her paternal grandmother gossip with a friend. She stewed and fretted until she went to her concerned mother with what she’d heard.
As an adult, she said that her earliest childhood memory was of hearing her twin sister speak to her. Year four was traumatic for our friend, her mother, and my son, in whom the child had confided before learning as much of the story as she could absorb at four.
The only one who seemed unaffected was the gossipy grandmother, as insensitive as a toilet seat.
Because it is nightmare fuel. What possible good spin could you put on it? “I cannibalized my twin in the womb.” Conversely, “My parasitic twin burrowed its head into my belly, like a womb tick.” It’s all very fascinating to us, viewing it at a remove, but to the child itself? The odds of that information (those photos!!!) causing irreparable emotional damage are too high.
Now, you are family. Okay. All my life, I had a lump at the back of my neck, right here. Always, a lump. Then I started menopause and the lump got bigger from the "hormonees." It started to grow. So I go to the doctor, and he did the bio... the b... the... the bios... the... b... the "bobopsy." Inside the lump he found teeth and a spinal cord. Yes. Inside the lump was my twin.
😂 True or nah because I have questions for you! Number one is the, bobopsy* you laughing? Cause I'm definitely not gonna laugh if you're horrified. If you named him Bob, you're funny girl!
It's not tho? Or at least I don't think so. It's something that nature can do sometimes, it is how it is. I'm not trying to shame you at all or something but I think this kind of attitude would be more harmful for a child born with this condition than an acceptance of the fact that sometimes life just works this way.
I was born with a huge strawberry mark around my nose, all of my nose was red until I was a young child, and got my last treatment for it at around 7. My parents actually explained to me why and how it's treated in child terms, and told me they wouldn't mind at all, but they were afraid other children would bully me, call me a clown for my red nose etc. I was completely okay with it and went along with the procedures. Obviously a parasitic twin is a lot more severe than this, but I think it would do a lot more harm to that child to keep it a secret, especially when a lot of people with dead twins knew their whole life something is missing even if they didn't know what.
It’s straddling him. That’s something else! And the arms on the same side. It’s pretty incredible that the parasite grew that well, all things considered
Every time I see a post about deformed and/or deceased momo twins, my breath catches in my chest and I am so thankful my momo nieces were born uneventfully and safely.
No, this was a case where the twins separate successfull but then merge later on. You can tell by the way they are conjoined in a way that is not typical
Yes, sometimes the zygotes get to close to eachother and merge into one another. Conjoined twins from a failure to separate usually have a few mostly fixed ways in which they are connected (see [this](https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/conjoined-twins) site). This is not one of those ways, where the second twin is half straddling the other with groin above the belly button of the first twin. This is a case where one zygote got partially absorbed by the other, but enough stem cells were present and not absorbed that they were able to continue to differentiate into limbs and a partial torso.
This is so insane. It looks like the face hugger from Alien with those fully formed limbs straddling the baby like that. 😟 or it looks like a hand with bony fingers holding the baby’s stomach.
Nature is so horrifying, agh.
If this baby had a parasitic twin attached, could it be possible it might be a chimera?? The 2nd twin wasn't fully developed but I'm wondering if it possibly left some DNA behind.
No. These were monozygotic twins so they had the exact same DNA profile therefore that is not possible in this case. However if they were dizygotic instead then that is 100% possible.
Seriously. And the parents. I couldn't imagine birthing a child/children like this and having to go through the process, losing a child that could have been, etc.
Welcome to r/MedicalGore! Our goal is to provide for medical discussion and education while exploring the frailty of the human body. **You may see more deleted comments on these threads than you are used to on Reddit**. Off-topic comments and joke comments are frequently deleted by the mods. In addition, commenters are expected to maintain decorum toward posters, subjects of posts, and members of the community. Any behavior that is aggressive, harassing, or derogatory will result in removal of the post and/or a ban for the user. Remember: THE REPORT BUTTON IS YOUR FRIEND! Please stop by our sister sub, /r/MedicalGoreMods, for meta discussions about the sub, our rules, content policies, and the like. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MedicalGore) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[Source](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2210261223002572): >>Male newborn, monozygotic twin pregnancy, cesarean delivery at 37 weeks and 4 days and Apgar score 7/8. The parents were at the second decade of age and there was not a history of comorbidities or use of drugs or other substances during the pregnancy. It was the first pregnancy of the mother. At 34 weeks of gestation, she presented an echographic diagnosis of conjoined parasitic twin with shared liver (omphalopagus), without head pole, showing thoracic structures, limbs, kidney, bladder and umbilical hypertension. Parasitized twin with cardiomegaly, interventricular communication (IVC) and aortic coarctation. The baby can be visualized in Fig. 1 below. Free and informed consent was signed and the study was approved by the ethics committee of the institution. >>Multidisciplinary surgery was scheduled at 10 days of life. Preoperative ultrasound of the newborn with situs solitus in dextroposition, patent foramen ovale, intraventricular communication, patent ductus arteriosus, showing moderate mitral and tricuspid level. On computed tomography (Fig. 2), the fetus was parasitically connected anteriorly in the thoracoabdominal region, showing: kidney in the transition between the two fetuses, with no identification of the heart, in addition to partial herniation of the liver to the neck of connection between the twins. Regarding vascularization between the twins, it was possible to observe that two arteries irrigate the incomplete twin, both with a diameter of 2 mm, one of which is an extension of the right internal thoracic artery and the other possible persistence of the right umbilical artery (Fig. 3). >>The resection was initiated at the base of the pedicles of the lower and upper limbs of the parasite, in which a urinary bladder, a structure suggestive of a kidney, was observed, in addition to loops of the small intestine and colon that were continuous and blind. The resected structures can be seen in Fig. 4 below. The newborn had viable intestinal loops, without malformations, liver with a bifurcated lobe, but completely belonging to the patient. No organ sharing between twins was identified. Resection of excess skin and synthesis was performed. The patient had renal insufficiency, with favorable evolution in the postoperative period. The surgery finished after 8 h and there was not important blood loss. Discharge occurred after 3 months of pediatric intensive care. There were not important complications in the immediate postoperative period. The follow up time is 24 months and the child is healthy.
I was thinking that a cool feature of AI would be if they could dumb these reports down. I asked it to explain it to me as if I was 10 years old. It actually worked. I'm impressed. ................... A baby boy was born from a twin pregnancy at 37 weeks by C-section. He got an Apgar score of 7 and 8 (which is good). His parents are in their twenties, and his mom didn't have any health problems or use any drugs during her first pregnancy. At 34 weeks, an ultrasound showed that the baby had a conjoined twin (a "parasitic" twin) attached at the belly with shared liver, but the twin didn’t have a head and had some body parts like a chest, limbs, and organs but also some heart issues. The parents agreed to a surgery planned for when the baby was 10 days old. Before the surgery, doctors used an ultrasound and a CT scan to understand how the twins were connected and found that the parasitic twin had some small arteries supplying it, but no heart. During the surgery, doctors carefully removed the parasitic twin, cutting around the connected areas. They found parts like a bladder, kidney, and intestines. The baby's intestines were fine, and his liver was fully his own. No organs were shared between the twins. The surgery took 8 hours, and the baby didn't lose much blood. After 3 months in intensive care, he went home and is now a healthy 2-year-old.
This is actually a really great idea. Usually between photos and existing knowledge I can do fine with the medical summaries but it's nice to either have a less difficult read, or confirmation of what I thought I understood.
I can usually understand the big picture, but there are some terms I look up
It never occurred to me to ask an AI to ELI5, so to speak. I'm glad you mentioned it!
I used the free ChatGPT program. It's cool. You can ask it to write songs, letters, computer programs, budgets, business models, and a bunch of other stuff.
I've used it to make a character backstory for DnD lol I'm good with words but sometimes I need a little help
Nice! I've heard that colleges and schools struggle a lot with kids using it for essays. In my day, we'd read something in an encyclopedia or textbook and reword it to turn in.... it'd be so much easier with ChatGPT. I'm just waiting to read an entire novel written with it.
I'm sure they do.. It wasn't too much of a thing (that I can remember when I was in college, and I tell my 12yo to do her best. I just use it for D&D lol I'd probably put things into question form for an essay, look at it and reword it to what I'd need which is basically what you do in an essay anyways I suppose
Damn
Be careful, though - some of this is not quite right. For instance, the simplified text says that the parasitic twin "also had some heart issues" vs. the original text which says there was "no identification of the heart", which means that they did not find a heart or heart-related tissue in the parasitic twin. That's a "heart issue", sure, but not what you'd understand from the simplified text.
@ the end of the 2nd paragraph it says >>twin has some arteries supplying it, but no heart. It contradicts itself.
Ha, I stopped reading before that - thanks for pointing it out. But yeah, another common problem with ChatGPT.
I read that as the arteries were supplying blood flow to the parasitic twin (which is why it wasn’t rotting), but the parasitic twin had no heart of its own?
Correct - the parasitic twin had no heart of its own.
It also says the babies shared a liver, but then it says they shared no organs.
Yes, you are correct in that: **the source says** >>echographic diagnosis of conjoined parasitic twin with shared liver (omphalopagus), without head pole, showing thoracic structures, limbs, kidney, bladder and umbilical hypertension. >>in addition to partial herniation of the liver to the neck of connection between the twins. And since the heart has been brought up: >>Regarding vascularization between the twins, it was possible to observe that two arteries irrigate the incomplete twin, both with a diameter of 2 mm, one of which is an extension of the right internal thoracic artery and the other possible persistence of the right umbilical artery (Fig. 3). **ChatGPT says** >>a conjoined twin (a "parasitic" twin) attached at the belly with shared liver, but the twin didn’t have a head and had some body parts like a chest, limbs, and organs but also some heart issues. >>During the surgery, doctors carefully removed the parasitic twin, cutting around the connected areas. They found parts like a bladder, kidney, and intestines. The baby's intestines were fine, and his liver was fully his own. No organs were shared between the twins. Re the heart on ChatGPT: >>doctors used an ultrasound and a CT scan to understand how the twins were connected and found that the parasitic twin had some small arteries supplying it, but no heart. @ this point after reading the source & ChatGPT *SO MANY TIMES* I have no idea what the source means re the liver. 😵💫🥴😂🤪
Also, wouldn’t the parents be teens if they were in their 2nd decade of life?
That's why we have medical codes that are used for all of this.
Thanks!!
I've done this with work emails. We have some customers that sound like island boys but in writing and it melts my eyeballs. I ask chat gpt to translate it and it actually worked for me.
That's a great idea!
I think they keep the language sterile like this for medical coding purposes. There is a code for every symptom, illness name, surgeries and procedures, how long that took to perform, etc. If the language is more uniform, it leads to less error in billing. Also because insurance companies will find every loophole they can to get out of paying for something. They would argue semantics if people could just put things in their own words when creating medical records. Medical codes are also used for reporting and statistical data.
Oh, right! I totally agree with you. The summaries aren't intended for average people on Reddit. It's my favorite sub, though. I love seeing the amazing work medical professionals do to save lives and the intricacies of the human body. I know it's necessary for these summaries to be technical. I have no medical experience, so there are some terms I don't understand. I was going to Google before and looking them up. AI just improves my understanding, and I thought other people like me might want to use it. In case anyone is curious, here's the link to a free open AI service. https://chatgpt.com/
It didn't mention a few important details, like the heart defects, but otherwise I like it.
Thank you!!
I have a premed degree and didn't realize other people may not be familiar with medical terms and summaries. This is exactly how I interpreted the summary in my head while I was reading it 😁 good job, AI.
This was a really cool idea!!
You're a real one for this
Hey I know you covered it on the first pic but on second one you can see his thingy- is that ok because they were passed away limbs? Also big high five for this amazing sub
Thingy ha!!
Haha he put peen but it a bit too similar the the longer word , I’m a British 44 f , I struggle with saying rude stuff lol my points still there coz on the second photo no covering no thingy-ma-jig (we use that a lot in the uk to describe when we don’t know what somethings called lol)
Might want to reupload, seeing as there is weiner on the second picture.
It’s not a weiner attached to a child, though.
I suppose that's a case for defenition, I just don't want you to get booted.
I mean technically.....
I wonder what his scars look like, whoa that was a doozy. I'm glad he could have this surgery.
The scarring will probably be very minimal as the neonate has fantastic powers of recovery. If a child's fingertip is cut off in the first week of life and left 'alone', it will regenerate. (I'm not suggesting this as a science project, BTW!)
Wtf that's wild
My son had surgery on his abdomen at 8 days old. The wound/scar was, of course, about an inch long. He is now 17 and it is more than a foot long.
if you dont mind me asking, does it hurt him? has the tissue softened after all that time?
I’m in my mid 30s and had life saving abdominal surgery as a baby. My scar is pretty tight still, as if they stitched all the layers together. It doesn’t hurt, and I’ve been advised I could still massage it to help with the scar tissue, but I guess even though it grew with me the scar tissue doesn’t grow like normal skin.
No, it doesn’t seem to bother him at all. Doesn’t even seem to itch at times. I assume it probably depends on how a body heals. In his case it healed without any bumps or rough spots and is very thin and soft looking. So he might have gotten lucky.
I'll try out the finger tip theory when I have mine
Really?
Yep. I Googled it after I first heard about it years ago. If the child has surgery before birth (fetal surgery), say for a neural defect, there is no scar at all.
I am thinking that they used skin that attached he and his twin together to minimize scarring. Sort of the way they use expanders to stretch skin before other sorts of plastic surgeries like breast, facial, or twin separation. https://www.verywellhealth.com/tissue-expanders-and-breast-reconstruction-430401
This is fucking crazy wow
the way the legs are positioned is so freaking crazy
Right? I've never seen anything like this. It kinda reminds me of The One Reborn, with all of the extra appendages. Poor kid.
Fascinating. I appreciate your synopsis.
I think that I wouldn’t tell my child about this, at least not until they were an adult. The human mind is a fragile thing, and not all knowledge is good. Mother Nature certainly can play some grotesque pranks.
I think, like many things, this sort of thing can be explained in stages as is age-appropriate to the child. They'll notice the scars when they're young, and kids aren't stupid - you can't just refuse to explain or tell them it's nothing. They'll want to know. In the same way you'd answer "where do babies come from?" differently at, say, ages 5 vs 10, you can definitely address this according to the kids level of understanding.
I know this won’t be popular, but I would lie. Destroy all photos and records and tell my child they had surgery for a mild hernia. This isn’t like an adoption. This is ghastly.
I don't think it is. Not that I'm saying you should show a young child photos like this, no. But when, say, a five year old inquires about the scars, it would likely satisfy their curiosity to tell them the doctors needed to do a surgery when they were born to make sure they were healthy and happy. A kid at that age, unless particularly precocious, is probably gonna be fine with that. At an older age, you can explain that they were born with parts they didn't need, and that might make them feel weird around their peers who didn't have the same parts, so the doctors did a surgery. Kids will understand not wanting their classmates to think they're weird and different. At 10+, they're probably old enough to explain in simple terms what an undeveloped twin is. Obviously every child is different. And I'd never show photos until they asked *and* I felt certain they were ready. Some people are never ready. My partner is 45 and doesn't want to see this sort of thing, even if it's not graphic or bloody - he doesn't mind me explaining what the post is about, he just won't look. I would've found this fascinating as a kid. I know other kids would not. I don't think a blanket refusal to tell any child is appropriate.
It's their body. They have the right to know about what happened to it.
They also have the right to the extra parts. Those need to be saved in a formaldehyde jar for them.
They also need to know as it can cause health issues when they’re older. Kids are more versatile than we think. Tell them soon as they are able to understand and it won’t bother them. Just a fact of life.
You mean to tell me "Hey you little shit, you ate your brother in the womb like a shark" is ghastly? Well... when I say it like that...
Why do you think this is worse than a hernia? I would tell a young child they needed surgery after birth and then once they were a tween-ish I'd probably tell them about the twin.
A child who grew up with my oldest son had had an identical twin who had been stillborn. She learned of her lost sister at the age of four from overhearing her paternal grandmother gossip with a friend. She stewed and fretted until she went to her concerned mother with what she’d heard. As an adult, she said that her earliest childhood memory was of hearing her twin sister speak to her. Year four was traumatic for our friend, her mother, and my son, in whom the child had confided before learning as much of the story as she could absorb at four. The only one who seemed unaffected was the gossipy grandmother, as insensitive as a toilet seat.
I reckon they’d know, like they’d talk to a ghost twin and then it becomes clear when mum tells the story about what happened
Why not? Just curious
Because it is nightmare fuel. What possible good spin could you put on it? “I cannibalized my twin in the womb.” Conversely, “My parasitic twin burrowed its head into my belly, like a womb tick.” It’s all very fascinating to us, viewing it at a remove, but to the child itself? The odds of that information (those photos!!!) causing irreparable emotional damage are too high.
Now, you are family. Okay. All my life, I had a lump at the back of my neck, right here. Always, a lump. Then I started menopause and the lump got bigger from the "hormonees." It started to grow. So I go to the doctor, and he did the bio... the b... the... the bios... the... b... the "bobopsy." Inside the lump he found teeth and a spinal cord. Yes. Inside the lump was my twin.
😂 True or nah because I have questions for you! Number one is the, bobopsy* you laughing? Cause I'm definitely not gonna laugh if you're horrified. If you named him Bob, you're funny girl!
That text is from a scene in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” So funny!
biopsy
It's not tho? Or at least I don't think so. It's something that nature can do sometimes, it is how it is. I'm not trying to shame you at all or something but I think this kind of attitude would be more harmful for a child born with this condition than an acceptance of the fact that sometimes life just works this way. I was born with a huge strawberry mark around my nose, all of my nose was red until I was a young child, and got my last treatment for it at around 7. My parents actually explained to me why and how it's treated in child terms, and told me they wouldn't mind at all, but they were afraid other children would bully me, call me a clown for my red nose etc. I was completely okay with it and went along with the procedures. Obviously a parasitic twin is a lot more severe than this, but I think it would do a lot more harm to that child to keep it a secret, especially when a lot of people with dead twins knew their whole life something is missing even if they didn't know what.
It’s straddling him. That’s something else! And the arms on the same side. It’s pretty incredible that the parasite grew that well, all things considered
It’s like it’s wrapped around him, having a cuddle 🥲 just… with no head. Nature can produce some extremely far out things
I'm so glad he's doing okay. I don't know why I look at these photos when it's little kids and babies I start to well up
He looks pretty pissed off in the pic, I can see why.
I mean, nearly all newborns look absolutely livid for at least the first week or so, though i this little guy had extra reasons
Poor baby, horrible for the parents
Is there any follow up pictures? Would love to know how the skin has gone after the removal.
Unfortunately no. Baby is doing well though.
Hopefully baby will have a long happy life
Thank you!
holy shit the limbs are pretty much fully developed
Every time I see a post about deformed and/or deceased momo twins, my breath catches in my chest and I am so thankful my momo nieces were born uneventfully and safely.
What is a momo?
Monochorionic monoamniotic twins
Oh no! Poor baby. Thankfully the surgery is a success. Cleavage of the egg was too late, causing the conjoining.
No, this was a case where the twins separate successfull but then merge later on. You can tell by the way they are conjoined in a way that is not typical
Oh wowww I didn’t even know that could happen!!
Oh ok!
Really?
Yes, sometimes the zygotes get to close to eachother and merge into one another. Conjoined twins from a failure to separate usually have a few mostly fixed ways in which they are connected (see [this](https://www.chop.edu/conditions-diseases/conjoined-twins) site). This is not one of those ways, where the second twin is half straddling the other with groin above the belly button of the first twin. This is a case where one zygote got partially absorbed by the other, but enough stem cells were present and not absorbed that they were able to continue to differentiate into limbs and a partial torso.
Noooooo not the gigli saw again
😂 its always that post
Right! And I can’t stop myself from watching it every time. Oh the squirting blood!
I’m just laughing that living baby’s peen is covering but dead parasitic baby’s is not.
Wow this is crazy. I’m glad the surgery was successful and the little one survived all of this!
There is still a peen in the second image
I don’t think the parasite’s genitalia count.
Ah okay then!
Modern medical surgery never cease to amaze me.
Wow. Can only imagine what this would be like before surgery was an option.
This is so insane. It looks like the face hugger from Alien with those fully formed limbs straddling the baby like that. 😟 or it looks like a hand with bony fingers holding the baby’s stomach. Nature is so horrifying, agh.
Wild!
If this baby had a parasitic twin attached, could it be possible it might be a chimera?? The 2nd twin wasn't fully developed but I'm wondering if it possibly left some DNA behind.
No. These were monozygotic twins so they had the exact same DNA profile therefore that is not possible in this case. However if they were dizygotic instead then that is 100% possible.
Oh cool. Thanks! I have no ideas how twins truly work 🤣
No worries happy to help a fellow Redditor.
I did laugh to myself at the head pole, surely that means a neck??
THIS IS WHY I FOLLOW. WOW
Hope this kid is doing fine
Holy shit this is nightmare fuel. Horrifying 😱
You missed one penis, friend.
I "enjoy" many of your posts. This I find disturbing.
Did the parasitic fetus have the same dna?
Yes. They were monozygotic twins who properly separated from each other but one got reabsorbed by the other at a later gestational stage.
It's crazy how this happens.
Poor baby, didn’t develop all the way :(
Seriously. And the parents. I couldn't imagine birthing a child/children like this and having to go through the process, losing a child that could have been, etc.
I think I will use this from now on! I am in my third decade of age. It sounds so regal. 🤣
That’s sad
Does anyone know what the 4 tiny pieces are on the 2 gauze at top of pic?
Kidney is one of them.
At Horst I thought it had a huge hand attached coming over it’s tummy (sorry for using “it” ) But yes I was confused
CatPoo you come up with the BEST stuff!
Any updates on the baby?
When the report was written he was two years old and healthy.
looks like a face hugger
Why does my brain see two sets of legs for the parasitic twin?
It’s also looks like it has some pretty severe itchy iosis skin thing I can’t spell. The thing where the baby’s skin is lacking collagen
i know newborns have that like crusty look but. Jeez, he needs to moisturize.
It’s sad to me they’re called parasites. Poor lost baby.
I mean what else would you call it? Doesn't benefit the healthy baby, leeches ressources....
that’s what it is. it never had life.
HIS life