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Conjoined twins' parents explain why they decided against separating them

Home> News> Health

Published 15:00 31 Oct 2023 GMT

Conjoined twins' parents explain why they decided against separating them

Abby and Brittany were conjoined twins at birth, with their parents deciding against separating them.

Callum Jones

Callum Jones

Featured Image Credit: YouTube/OMG Stories/ Origin

Topics: US News, Health

Callum Jones
Callum Jones

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The parents of conjoined twins once explained why they decided against separating them when they were younger.

Abby and Brittany Hensel are conjoined twins who work as teachers at an elementary school.

Having been connected all their life, the 33-year-olds have spent the past decade working as teachers after they graduated university and entered the world of work.

Abby and Brittany are conjoined twins, to give it the proper medical name, dicephalic parapagus twins, which gives them the appearance of having two heads and one body.

It is a very rare condition, with each woman having her own heart, stomach, spine and lungs, and they each control one leg and one arm each of the conjoined body.

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The twin sisters can eat, write and complete other tasks separately, though other tasks which require the use of multiple limbs at the same time requires some very precise coordination between the pair.

Working together, the sisters can drive a car, play the piano, ride a bike and participate in sports, and they also work together in their jobs as teachers.

Abby and Brittany Hensel are conjoined twins.
YouTube/OMG Stories

Each of them has their own driver's license and had to pass their test separately, as the state of Minnesota requires both of them to hold their own license.

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The twins could have gone through surgical separation when they are younger, though doctors did tell them that it would be unlikely for them both to survive the operation.

As the twins progressed through childhood and began to develop their skills, their parents confirmed no separation surgery would be happening.

They argued the quality of life for the surviving twin or the twins living separately would be be less than their quality of life as conjoined twins.

The sisters have appeared on TV several times, first in 1996 on The Oprah Winfrey Show and then on documentaries Joined for Life and Joined at Birth.

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Nowadays, the sisters live normal lives as elementary school teachers.
YouTube/OMG Stories

Abby and Brittany also featured on UK TV show Extraordinary People, and starred in their own TLC reality show Abby & Brittany, which aired in 2012 and followed the sisters as they graduated from university and started working as teachers.

While the pair may have earned separate degrees and each hold a teaching license, Abby and Brittany are paid just one salary between them.

Abby told the BBC in 2013: "As maybe experience comes in we'd like to negotiate a little bit, considering we have two degrees and because we are able to give two different perspectives or teach in two different ways."

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"One can be teaching and one can be monitoring and answering questions," Brittany said. "So in that sense we can do more than one person."

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