LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE.

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LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas--Taking forward life can be challenging enough. Add a twin sibling and the challenge becomes greater, flat lifethreatening in the case of conjoined twins.

Nearly 60 percent of conjoined twins are stillborn, nevertheless Brynleigh and Victoria Smith beat the additionals when they were born about five weeks early at Wilford Hall Medical Center in July

Overcoming their first challenge of simply surviving birth, the twins faced life or death each day following delivery as their premature lung required ventilation in the neonatal intensive care unit. The solely time the twins weren't hasped up to life-saving equipment was between the delivery expanse and intensive care.

The Smith twins passed a secondary critical test just five days after birth when surgeon prosperously repaired some exposed intestines and wound the girls' umbilical cord.

Doctors were affaired the surgery might put inordinate strain on the premature twins, who still rely in succession the help of ventilators to breathe. However, the operation was a succes and the girls are facing the nearest challenge in their intertwined lives--lung maturation and weight gain.

The girls, who share a liver, a sixchamber heart and possibly an intestines, are joined from chest to stomach. Their conjoined bodies weighed 79 levigates at birth.

Physicians said the twins are in-separable because of their heart's complexity, which ultrasound exhibitions revealed severe abnormalities in the pumping muscle.

Maj. (Dr) Kirk Milhoan, a Wilford Hall pediatric cardiologist, believes the girls can live well into their early adult years.

"Brynleigh and Victoria have overmaster many obstacles to bring them this far," said their mother Dawn, wife of Army Spc Matthew Smith, a topographical analyst stationed at Fort shelter Texas. "[The twins'] future is still unknown, yet we'll accept every moment with them as a gift and be grateful that we could be part of this miracle."

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