Foetus With 2 Brains, 2 Faces: Docs Say Abort, Parents Say No

Doctors have advised them to abort their foetus which has 2 faces and 2 brains, but this Australian couple says they plan to go ahead with the pregnancy and never even thought about abortion. The unborn child’s father Simon Howie said, "It'd be the same as being a child with autism or Down syndrome. I don't believe in terminating the baby if it's healthy and growing fine, and everything is going to plan.”

Three-dimensional sonograms show the child with two legs, two arms, one body and all vital organs, including a strong heart. But the child has two faces with the same features and two brains joined by a brain stem. When the doctors discovered the condition and asked the parents to abort the child, it was too late for a traditional abortion.

"It's probably the rarest of all the conjoined twins. You'd be thinking numbers of one in a million to one in two million for this kind of anomaly," Dr Greg Kesby, a maternal foetal specialist, told MSN.

The couple already has seven kids and are ready to take on all the challenges and medical treatment for the happiness of the eighth child. Dr Greg Kesby said that there were chances that the baby might not be able to survive till the full term and if it survives the treatment will be very expensive.

This condition of rare duplication is known as craniofacial hyperhidrosis or diprosopus and till date only 35 cases have ever been recorded. And out of these, no one was able to survive.

Mother of the foetus Renee Young suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and was 15 weeks and two days pregnant when the doctors informed her about the rare condition.

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Source-Medindia