Twin girls who are conjoined at chest and share a single heart were born in Odisha on 1st July, doctors said in Cuttack.

The babies were born in Dhenkanal district headqurters hospital and later admitted to the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Post Graduate Institute for Paediatrics, popularly known as Sishu Bhawan, Cuttack. Superintendent of the Sishu Bhawan, Dr Sanjay Satpathy, said the twins were born with a single heart. The condition of the babies and their mother Renubala Behera of of Khalpal village in Dhenkanal district is stable.

Hospital sources said the girls will have to undergo several clinical tests before a decision can be made on separating them via surgery. "This is a rare case of abdomino-thoracopagus twins. In most such cases, the babies share a single heart and a single liver," said a paediatric surgeon appearing apprehensive about a successful surgery. It is not immediately known whether or not the twins share a single liver.

The Sishu Bhawan had received a similar case in December 2017 in which the twins shared a single and defective heart. They had died after three weeks during treatment, the sources said. The news of the Dhenkanal twins came at a time when Odisha is waiting to receive separated conjoined twins, Jaga and Kalia, as they are likely to return to the state from New Delhi this month.

The twins, who had been born with their heads joined, hails from Milipada village in Kandhamal district. They were separated in a marathon 12-hour surgery in October 2017.