2000

There were a total of 47 births of conjoined twins around the world that we saw documented during 2000. Almost all of the cases listed here (35 of 47) were pairs of girls as well as one fetus in fetu birth of a boy twin. Most research indicates that conjoined twins are 70% female and 30% male, and that perhaps more than half of all conjoined twins are born stillborn with a little more than a third surviving past the first day. Cases below are shown in reverse chronological order:

Jose Armando and Jose Luis Cevallos Herrera, ischiopagus dipus twins, are born in Ecuador sometime in 2000.

Ischiopagus tetrapus twin girls Acharee and Alkhana are born to a Thai couple, Sangthong and Laksana Osopsri, in 2000, and successfully separated. However, according to this 2001 report, the sisters require follow-up care which the family cannot afford.

Omphalopagus twin boys, Gian-Nichola and Marco Saldaña Stamatiu, are born to a Chilean family on Christmas Eve, but survive for only a few hours.

A set of conjoined twin girls, Bongive and Bongekile Gazu, are born at the Pietermaritzburg Edendale Hospital in South Africa on December 22. The mother was from Ixopo, South Africa. The omphalopagus twins are successfully separated in June of 2001. Another set of conjoined twins was born at the same hospital 30 years earlier.

A pair of twin boys, Kiti and Piti, are born in Bangkok, Thailand on December 19. Each boy is born with a hole in his heart and they share just one liver and kidney. Kiti and Piti both die following an attempt to separate them.

Also on December 19, Míriam and Fátima Vargas are born in Colombia. Both girls pass away on February 4, 2001.

An unnamed pair of twin boys are delivered stillborn in Abuja, Nigeria on December 6. The twins were apparently dicephalus conjoined twins.

The third pair of conjoined twins we've seen reported this year from China are born on November 22 in Jiangsu. The boys undergo unsuccessful separation surgery the day following their birth and both boys pass away within three days according to an Associated Press story.

A pair of boys, Diogo and Diego Leite Pereira, are born in rural Campina Grande, Brazil on November 9. The twins are conjoined in the upper body and share a liver. Separation surgery similar to Baby Jodie and Baby Mary was performed on November 19 leading to Diego's death. The mother of the twins was just 18 years old at the time of delivery.

Conjoined sisters Aline and Alana da Silva are born in Brazil on November 2. They are separated on November 15 but sadly both die.

A pair of girls are born in a hospital in Wenzhou, in east China's Zhejiang Province on October 24. The twins share a liver and spleen. The parents of the twins found out they were going to have conjoined twins just three days before the mother's C-Section induced labor.

The first conjoined twins in Portland, Oregon history are born on October 18 with the c-section delivery of girls Alaina and Xela Bryce to parents Taluai and Adrian Bryce of Vancouver, Washington. The two Thoracopagus twin girls are born connected at the abdomen and weigh a combined 12 pounds, 5 ounces. Successful separation surgery was completed on October 31.

Sollangie and Lucelly Olarte are born in Colombia on October 11 but survive only a short while.

The Children's Hospital of Olympia, Washington reported the successful separation of conjoined Ischiopagus Tripus twin girls, Charity Mae and Kathleen Faith Lincoln on October 2. A team of 20 surgeons and 20 other personnel completed the 30-hour successful separation surgery of the girls joined together from the bottom of the breastbone to the hip (the hospital's third-such separation). NBC Dateline ran an update on the Lincoln Twins on a Feb. 9, 2001 show and both girls continue to improve.

The third pair of conjoined twin girls born in the country of Colombia this year takes place on September 22 in Cartagena as María Luisa and María Fernanda Rodelo are born joined together at the skull. Doctors attempt to separate the girls in surgery the next day but Maria Luisa dies during the surgery and Maria Fernanda suffers respiratory failure and dies the next day.

Xiphopagus twin boys, Tu Kang and Tu Jian, are born in China on September 13 and successfully separated on March 13, 2001.

A remarkable pair of twins are born to 16-year-old Verónica Saucedo and 17-year-old Daniel Romero in Villa Luzuriaga, Argentina, on September 10. Because the girls, Luz and Milagros, are extensively joined and share just two working legs (and a third vestigial leg), their parents elect not to have them separated and instead send them to school as conjoined twins in nearby Villa San Martin. To our knowledge, the twins are still alive and healthy.

On September 9, Leydi Johana and Diana Cristina Vargas Jaramillo are born in Itagüí, Colombia, conjoined at the abdomen. They undergo separation on September 14 at the Clinica Leon XIII in Medellín but both succumb.

Omphalopagus twins Soledad and Veronica are born in Argentina on September 10.

Thoracopagus twin boys are born to the Oporta Valdez family of Nicaragua on September 5, but survive for only two days.

Mary and Decontee Cole were born attached at the bottom of the spine on June 4 in a hut in Liberia. They were successfully separated a the Columbus (OH) Children's Hospital on September 11 and are expected to make complete recoveries.

A pair of girls, Leydi Johana and Diana Cristina, are born in Medellin, Columbia on September 9. They undergo a risky separation surgery on September 13 and less than 24 hours later, both Leydi and Diana pass away due to respiratory problems. The girls shared four gallbladders at birth.

On August 8, 2000, a woman from the island of Gozo, part of the Mediterranean nation of Malta, gives birth to ischiopagus tetrapus twins at St. Mary's Hospital Manchester, England. Nicknamed Baby Jodie and Baby Mary by the media to protect the parents' anonymity (their real names were later revealed to be Rosie and Gracie), the sisters present troubling legal and ethical problems. Mary (Rosie) is born without functioning heart or lungs and with other conspicuous defects. Separation from Jodie (Gracie) would definitely be fatal for Mary. However, the parents, Rina and Michaelangelo Attard, are devout Catholics and refuse to allow separation on religious grounds because it would kill Mary. After a lengthy court battle, the parents' wishes are overridden by British law and Mary and Jodie are surgically separated on November 6, 2000. Mary dies in surgery, as expected, and is buried in Malta, while Jodie survives and returns home with her parents.

Dicephalus dibrachius twin brothers, sharing a single heart, are born to the Salah family of Jordan on July 25, along with a non-conjoined triplet brother.

An extremely rare case of a fetus in fetu set of twins are born in Texas on July 14. Weylin Kleinman had an 18-week gestational developed fetus growing in his abdomen which was removed seven days after he was born in an operation performed in New York. Weylin had eight operations during his first year of life, including organ transplants of a liver and bowel in Pittsburgh.

Conjoined sisters, Kelvoyna and Kelvondra, are born in Greenville, Mississippi on July 12 to parents, Shennikia Malone and Kelvin Howard. The twins are joined at the hip and stomach and share a liver, bladder and some pelvic bone. They are successfully separated at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and return home with their family to Mississippi in time to celebrate their first birthday.

A pair of girls, Yulissa and Yuli Baez Suriel, are born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on July 1. The two were joined at the thorax and shared a heart. Doctors in the Dominican were unable to perform separation surgery or find a US Hospital to perform the surgery and both girls sadly died in August.

Craniopagus twin brothers Xiang Juan and Xiang Xin are born in July of 2000 in China and undergo separation on November 3-5, 2001, at 16 months.

A pair of girls born in New York City on June 9. The girls, Janlee and Janlean Rivera Luna, are from Puerto Rico, and ischio-omphalopagus twins, attached by the liver, bladder and intestines and sharing three legs. Unfortunately, New York doctors were only able to keep Janlean alive following separation surgery that was performed on October 6. Dateline NBC ran an update on the family on May 1, 2001. The Rivera Luna family has built a web site devoted to their twins at this location (en Espanol).

A pair of girls born in Columbia, Lorena and Daniela, in June. The two were joined from the waist to the neck and shared one deformed, common heart. Doctors decided against separating the twins after examining them in Spain.

Another set of girls are born in June, the Andrade Twins of Veracruz, Mexico, Maria Carmen and Maria Guadalupe. Like the Columbian Twins listed above, it is also decided that Carmen and Lupita can not be separated as the dicephalus twins share a common chest wall. The twins receive four months of medical attention in New York before returning to Mexico in the fall of 2001. They later return to the United States and their families settle in Connecticut where the girls continue to learn to walk and talk.

Sarah-Beatriz and Sarah-Mayerling Pirela Sánchez are born in Venezuela on May 29. Joined at the chest and sharing a heart, they survive for just one day.

A pair of girls born in Rui'an, in east China's Zhejiang Province on May 28. The twins were born attached at the abdomen and shared a colon and several internal organs. The younger of the twins survived an August 28 separation, but the older sister died eight hours after the surgery. The Huang sisters were ischiopagus tetrapus.

Another pair of craniopagus twin girls, Ganga and Jamuna Shrestha, are born in Nepal on May 9 to parents Bhushan K.C. and Sandhya Shrestha K.C. They are separated in Singapore in an operation which lasts more than 90 hours from April 6-10, 2001. Although both sisters survive the surgery, they suffer from many cognitive and motor disabilities and the ethics of the operation have been called into question, as in this 2005 article published in Scotland.

Thoracopagus twins sharing a heart, Faith and Hope Emberson, are born at Greenlane Hospital in Auckland, New Zealand on May 2 but survive for only three days.

Julia and Teresa de Santiago Garcia are born in Mexico on April 25. Pygopagus twins, they are separated on July 5.

Dicephalus tetrabrachius twin boys Ayşe and Sema Tanrikulu are born in Turkey on April 24. They are not separated and to date are doing well. Several updates (in Turkish) can be found here, here, and here. If you read Turkish and are willing to translate these articles, please contact the author (girlrat@aol.com).

Tay-lah and Monique Armstrong, an extremely rare example of craniopagus twins (actually connected at the skull with the girls facing back to back from each other) are born in Brisbane, Australia on April 3 to a 21-year-old mother, Pacquita Armstrong. Although joined by a very small area, the twins suffered complications during their October 24 separation because one sister's brain had protruded into the other's skull. Tay-lah, who developed cerebral palsy after the operation, passed away from a congenital heart defect on September 17, 2002.

In Peru, two sets of conjoined twins with the surname Flores are born this year. On February 14, brothers Frank and Alexander Flores are born. On March 2, Martha and Maribel Flores are born, and undergo separation the same day.

Thoracopagus twin girls Valerie and Valerhia Agnasi are born in the Philippines on February 7 but both pass away during an operation to separate them.

Thoracopagus twin girls are born to to del Monte Jiménez family of the Dominican Republic on January 27.

On January 21, ischiopagus tetrapus twins Lucia and Andrea Tóthová are born in Slovakia. They undergo successful separation in Sweden in September of 2000 and are taken to meet Pope John Paul II in 2003.

Two Peruvian Twins, Marta and Milagro, are born in January. The twins who also shared one heart were brought to Italy and were separated in a surgery in Palermo in mid-May. Both girls died during the surgery.

Another pair of sisters from the Dominican Republic, Jazmin and Nasmil Campusano Frias, who were successfully separated in early January at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital in Paterson, New Jersey. The twins were connected at the breastbone and upper abdomen and shared one liver. The separation surgery divided their one liver into two smaller, functioning organs. They are doing well and have returned home to their native country.

In Pakistan, sisters named Shifa and Dua are born in 2000. Dua dies following an attempt to separate them.

[Back to Chronological Timeline of Conjoined Twins Timeline]