.
In history, there has been as many as fifteen babies conceived during pregnancy, one thirty-five year old women had quindecaplets removed from her womb. It was known that the babies would not have a chance of survival. There are many reported births of sexuplets (6), septuplets (7), octuplets (8), nonuplets (9), decaplets (10), undecaplets (11), duodecaplets (12), tridecaplets(13), Quadecaplets (14), and quindecaplets. The highest number of surviving babies is octuplets (Rugh 22).
One of the rare types of twins is a conjoined twin, also called Siamese twins. Siamese is a term made famous from Chang and Eng born in 1811 in Siam (Rugh 65). It is estimated that conjoined twins occur one in 50,000 to one in 100, 000 births (Segal 29). They are joined at identical sites. Conjoined twins originate from a single fertilized egg. The developing embryo starts to split into identical twins within the first two weeks after conception. However, the process stops before it is complete, leaving a partially separated egg that develops into a conjoined fetus. Among those deliveries, forty to sixty percent are stillborn and thirty-five survive only one day (Segal 297). The overall survival rate of conjoined twins are between five and twenty-five percent (Segal 30). If the twins have separate sets of organs, chances for surgery and survival are greater than if they share the same organs.
Conjoined twinning is unaffected by maternal age, ethnicity, and number of previous children. Family history of conjoined twinning is also unrelated to producing conjoined twins; so genetic factors are not involved.
Conjoined twins born today are detected during routine prenatal examination including sonograms. However, before sonograms were available only fifty to seventy percent of conjoined twins were identified before birth (Segal 301). A first diagnosed conjoined twin was in 1976 at thirty-seven weeks (Segal 302).
