Tofa, Tahura ready to leave hospital

The recently-separated conjoined twins of Gaibandha are ready for release from hospital as doctors believe they are developing normally after a major splitting operation early last month.

Tofa and Tahura, now 10-month-old,  are currently out of danger, Associate Professor Shahnoor Islam of Dhaka Medical College Hospital told The Daily Star. “We hope they will do fine.”

Hospital authorities will release them tomorrow after a scheduled visit of Health Minister Mohammed Nasim.

The babies, who were joined from waist down since birth, will undergo several more operations to fix their rectum lining and reproductive organs in the future. “Currently, we have asked the parents for a monthly follow-up. The future operations will be based on their physical condition,” Prof Shahnoor Islam said.

BEING TRAINED TO SIT UP

Doctors are training the babies every day to sit upright and crawl. They say the babies will take time to speed  up their learning process as they were habituated to learn in a conjoined state.

“We are training the girls to crawl and sit upright gently,” said Prof Shahnoor. “It will take time for them to learn, but we hope they will have no problem.”

The twins' mother, Shahida Begum, told The Daily Star that her babies could lean on two sides slightly and that the doctors taught her about how she would train them at home.

She said her babies were eating normal food and gaining weight. They weighed 6kg each last month, around three weeks after their operation. During the operation each of their  weight was 5kg.  Daughters of Shahida and Raju Mia from Gaibandha, the twins were believed to have been suffering from a medical condition called "Pygopagus" in which two individuals are joined at the buttocks. They also shared one anus.