two headed baby

In article ,
"Deborah Terreson" wrote:

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In article , Hope Munro
Smith wrote:


In article ,
"Deborah Terreson" wrote:

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In article , Jenn
wrote:


In article ,
(St. Matthew) wrote:

What if the same thing happened to you? If it were me, God forbid,
there'd be no cameras in the nursery, that's for sure. It's not a
freak show.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=2500458

I have been horrified that this is all over the news -- exactly like a
freak show

what can parents be thinking of to expose their child to this --

What are you worried about.. After the operation, the kid'll look normal
and
no one will be interested then..

Unfortunately she didn't make it:

http://abcnews.go.com/wire/World/ap20040207_472.html

Bummer.

Yep, I was bummed out when I heard.

In ,
CC Bailey wrote:

*
*Actually, this isn't the first. There was actually
*conjoined twins born last year in Egypt that share the same
*body. That's right: two heads, one body. Now that's a
*freaky picture.

Surely you're mistaken and thinking of Mohamed and Ahmed Ibrahim, who had
two heads and two bodies, joined at the tops of their skulls. How many
egyptian conjoined twins can there have been in the past year or so?


--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

Hillary Israeli wrote:
In ,
CC Bailey wrote:

*
*Actually, this isn't the first. There was actually
*conjoined twins born last year in Egypt that share the same
*body. That's right: two heads, one body. Now that's a
*freaky picture.

Surely you're mistaken and thinking of Mohamed and Ahmed Ibrahim, who had
two heads and two bodies, joined at the tops of their skulls. How many
egyptian conjoined twins can there have been in the past year or so?

Twin girls, Huda and Manal Abdel Nasser Mohammed Mahmoud

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click...221&s et_id=1

toypup wrote:

"CC Bailey" wrote in message
...

St. Matthew wrote:


(H Schinske) wrote in message

...

wrote:



I have been horrified that this is all over the news -- exactly like a
freak show

what can parents be thinking of to expose their child to this --

How is it any different than any other operation to separate conjoined

twins?

Those are *always* news.



This world has never seen a live 2 headed baby before. This is a
first.


Actually, this isn't the first. There was actually
conjoined twins born last year in Egypt that share the same
body. That's right: two heads, one body. Now that's a
freaky picture.



There are some girls in the U.S. like that. They consider themselves two
separate individuals. They have one body, two arms, two legs, two heads.
Each head controls half the body. I think what's unique about this baby is
that one head is growing out of the other and it is parasitic in nature.



I just did a search and found information on these girls,
Brittany and Abigail Hensel. They sound like
extraordinarilly ordinary girls, if that's possible.

Read the article. Nothing can follow this little girl around, she died 7
hours after the operation

--
Cadie and Aries
| this is a total pander --- why do people have to see these pictures
| except for the usual pornographic reasons? think how this child is
| going to love this following her around for the rest of her life --
| pictures once publized are forever

"Deborah Terreson" wrote in message
...


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In article ,
(St. Matthew) wrote:


"toypup" wrote in message
news:EGRUb.240818$na.397528@attbi_s04...

In ,
St. Matthew wrote:

*What if the same thing happened to you?

I don't know what I'd really do in her parents' shoes. I do know I
didn't
immediately feel a bond with DS when he was born. I hear that's
normal. If
my child had two heads, it might freak me out too much and take me much
longer to develop a bond. The second head moving its mouth while I was
nursing would really bother me.


I'd be flooded with empathy for the little one. I'd also even have
feelings for the partially developed head because there is some brain
activity detected there. It is a form of life, too, after all.

Yeah, I wondered about that too. But, as the doctors said, it was growing
faster than the girl. It could very well kill her as it pushed into her
brain and compressed it. Gotta go, rather than take the chance that the
infant dies as well.

Deb.

Did the baby have an emergency baptism? If so, was the other head baptized
also as a separate individual? This would matter to parents with religious
beliefs.

When conjoined twins are born with only one set of legs, they get given one
leg each. Apparently it is not ethical to try to produce one perfect child
and let the other die. Can this be right?

With the medical miracles of today, it is easy to forget that the patients
are real people who must live with the end results of all these procedures.
Fortunately with the worst defects, (anencephaly, sirenomelia etc) the
infants cannot survive.

Geopelia

In article ,
"geopelia" wrote:

"Deborah Terreson" wrote in message
...


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In article ,
(St. Matthew) wrote:


"toypup" wrote in message
news:EGRUb.240818$na.397528@attbi_s04...

In ,
St. Matthew wrote:

*What if the same thing happened to you?

I don't know what I'd really do in her parents' shoes. I do know I
didn't
immediately feel a bond with DS when he was born. I hear that's
normal. If
my child had two heads, it might freak me out too much and take me much
longer to develop a bond. The second head moving its mouth while I was
nursing would really bother me.


I'd be flooded with empathy for the little one. I'd also even have
feelings for the partially developed head because there is some brain
activity detected there. It is a form of life, too, after all.

Yeah, I wondered about that too. But, as the doctors said, it was growing
faster than the girl. It could very well kill her as it pushed into her
brain and compressed it. Gotta go, rather than take the chance that the
infant dies as well.

Deb.

Did the baby have an emergency baptism? If so, was the other head baptized
also as a separate individual? This would matter to parents with religious
beliefs.

No -- it would matter to parents with *specific* religious beliefs. To
some very deeply religious people, baptism is meaningless -- someting
done in someone else's religion -- even among Christians, there are many
who find infant baptism to be an unacceptable practice.

The question of whether the baby which didn't develop was a seperate
individual is for the parents and their religious leaders to decide. It
is not something that can be established as fact.

meh
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

"dragonlady" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"geopelia" wrote:

"Deborah Terreson" wrote in message
...


----------
In article ,
(St. Matthew) wrote:


"toypup" wrote in message
news:EGRUb.240818$na.397528@attbi_s04...

In ,
St. Matthew wrote:

*What if the same thing happened to you?

I don't know what I'd really do in her parents' shoes. I do know I
didn't
immediately feel a bond with DS when he was born. I hear that's
normal. If
my child had two heads, it might freak me out too much and take me
much
longer to develop a bond. The second head moving its mouth while I
was
nursing would really bother me.


I'd be flooded with empathy for the little one. I'd also even have
feelings for the partially developed head because there is some
brain
activity detected there. It is a form of life, too, after all.

Yeah, I wondered about that too. But, as the doctors said, it was
growing
faster than the girl. It could very well kill her as it pushed into
her
brain and compressed it. Gotta go, rather than take the chance that
the
infant dies as well.

Deb.

Did the baby have an emergency baptism? If so, was the other head
baptized
also as a separate individual? This would matter to parents with
religious
beliefs.

No -- it would matter to parents with *specific* religious beliefs. To
some very deeply religious people, baptism is meaningless -- someting
done in someone else's religion -- even among Christians, there are many
who find infant baptism to be an unacceptable practice.

The question of whether the baby which didn't develop was a seperate
individual is for the parents and their religious leaders to decide. It
is not something that can be established as fact.

One of the questions I was asked before labor was induced for Brian was
whether we wanted someone present to baptize him immediately after birth,
given that he was expected to be stillborne or live only a short time. We
decided against it, because in my religious training, baptism is a contract
with the parents and the church, to bring up a child in a religious manner,
and for a child who does not survive, the contract is meaningless.
Similarly, last rites would not have been appropriate, because a newborn
baby has no sins to forgive. (Another question I was asked, even though DH
and I are not Catholic). Only if you believe baptism is essential in a
child's admittance to heaven (a belief even the Catholic church has largely
dismissed) would this be essential.

On a similar note, the Jewish mothers in my support group chose not to have
their sons circumsized, although most had been asked about this ceremony.

My heart aches for this mother, who won't be given a chance to grieve in
peace, and who will be forever haunted with self-doubts and fears because of
this incidence. Losing any child is hard, and losing one in such a public
way is at least doubly so.

meh
--
Children won't care how much you know until they know how much you care

In ,
CC Bailey wrote:

*Hillary Israeli wrote:
* In ,
* CC Bailey wrote:
*
* *
* *Actually, this isn't the first. There was actually
* *conjoined twins born last year in Egypt that share the same
* *body. That's right: two heads, one body. Now that's a
* *freaky picture.
*
* Surely you're mistaken and thinking of Mohamed and Ahmed Ibrahim, who had
* two heads and two bodies, joined at the tops of their skulls. How many
* egyptian conjoined twins can there have been in the past year or so?
*
*Twin girls, Huda and Manal Abdel Nasser Mohammed Mahmoud
*
*http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click...221&s et_id=1
*

Wow. That is pretty darn surprising to me! I mean, conjoined twins are
pretty rare.

--
hillary israeli vmd http://www.hillary.net
"uber vaccae in quattuor partes divisum est."
not-so-newly minted veterinarian-at-large

(Hillary Israeli) wrote in message ...
In ,
CC Bailey wrote:

*Hillary Israeli wrote:
* In ,
* CC Bailey wrote:
*
* *
* *Actually, this isn't the first. There was actually
* *conjoined twins born last year in Egypt that share the same
* *body. That's right: two heads, one body. Now that's a
* *freaky picture.
*
* Surely you're mistaken and thinking of Mohamed and Ahmed Ibrahim, who had
* two heads and two bodies, joined at the tops of their skulls. How many

* egyptian conjoined twins can there have been in the past year or so?
*
*Twin girls, Huda and Manal Abdel Nasser Mohammed Mahmoud
*
*http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click...221&s et_id=1
*

Wow. That is pretty darn surprising to me! I mean, conjoined twins are
pretty rare.

The weird thing about these reports IMHO is that this doesn't look
like a 'baby girl with two heads' to me, it looks like 'two baby
girls who share one body'. To me, head = person. I read an
article about those American conjoined girls about a decade
ago, and it seemed really obvious that they were two people
who shared a body, not one person with two heads. It's more
borderline if one of the heads is malformed or vestigial, as
in the recent sad case, but if both heads are healthy and have
working brains, they seem like two people to me (albeit two
people in a truly weird situation).

I don't think this is something for which there's a right or
wrong, it's just interesting how different people conceptualize
the situation of two heads/one body.

Beth