Kenyan Woman Appeals for Help After Giving Birth to Conjoined Twins

A 25-year-old Kenyan woman is appealing for help after she gave birth to a set of conjoined twins in Bungoma County.

Ruth Nafula delivered the twins, both boys weighing five kilograms, via Caesarian section at Nabwala Hospital in Kanduyi on Thursday.

The twins were immediately transferred to Bungoma County Referral Hospital after doctors noticed that they were adjoined from the chest down to the abdomen.

Lead pediatrician at Bungoma Referral Hospital Dr. Dickens Lubanga told Nation that the initial assessment determined that both babies are healthy and breathing well on their own.

“The good thing about the twins is that currently, from the ultrasound most of the organs that they have are not shared; that’s including the heart, including the liver except some part of the bowels which seem to be shared but we have not yet confirmed. We will require a CT scan to tell us which part of the intestines is being shared,” he said.

Lubanga pointed out that the birth of conjoined boys was a rare occurrence at the facility, adding that they only experience 1 out of 60, 000 births of such cases globally.

The newborns are set to be transferred to Kenyatta National Hospital for further assessment and separation.

“We are happy Kenyatta National Hospital has agreed to have them and we are hopeful the pediatric surgeons in Kenyatta will help separate them successfully,” he added.

Nafula, now a mother of three, appealed to well-wishers to help foot the bill of the operation, saying that she is a housewife while her husband, a small-scale farmer, cannot raise the funds.