Formerly conjoined Nigerian twin girls, Miracle and Testimony Ayeni, who were separated during an 18-hour operation in the United States of America have been released from Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
The nearly 14-month-old girls had been receiving follow-up treatment and monitoring at Le Bonheur ever since undergoing operation in early November.
“They’re doing very well,” hospital spokeswoman, Anne Glankler, said.
Released Tuesday, they’re staying with their parents, Samuel and Mary Ayeni, and older sister, Marvelous, at the FedExFamilyHouse, the nearby facility on Poplar that serves families of Le Bonheur patients.
The girls will continue to undergo physical and occupational therapy “for quite some time,” Glankler said.
The Ayeni family arrived in Memphis last June, when preparations for the surgery began, with help from the Linking Hands Foundation; a group connected to the United Nations Children’s Fund and dedicated to kids’ health and education.
The group had contacted Dr. Uzoma Ben Gbulie, a plastic surgeon at Le Bonheur who is a native of Nigeria. He checked about having the operation done at the hospital, where surgeons five years earlier had separated conjoined twin boys from Memphis.
The operation on the Ayeni girls, conducted by a 15-member multidisciplinary team, was especially complicated, surgeons said.
Miracle and Testimony were born joined together at the pelvis, a condition that only occurs in one of about every 5 million births.
They were born fused at the lower halves of their bodies, with their legs splayed apart as if they were doing the splits against one another.
The girls shared parts of their intestines and a colon, and one had both kidneys fused together.
Their bladders exchanged blood and drainage with one another.
The Ayeni family travelled to the US with their pastor after being offered free flights by Arik Air.
