Havana, July 16 (Prensa Latina) Specialists at the Ramón González Coro Maternal and Child Hospital in the Cuban capital are celebrating today the birth of Merliah Victoria and Merleth Victoria, twins who defied medical predictions about monochorionic pregnancy.
Multiple pregnancies always involve increased medical attention and amazement for family members, friends, and, of course, doctors.
Yailín Amaro arrived at the hospital at 27 weeks pregnant, following a referral from her health department. She was diagnosed with a “monochorionic pregnancy with twin-to-twin transmission,” a condition in which both fetuses share the same placenta and one fetus feeds from the other, Lisa Ramos, head of the Obstetrics Department at González Coro Hospital, told Prensa Latina exclusively.
Monochorionic pregnancy is rare and has serious complications. It is estimated that one in every two thousand pregnancies worldwide has this type of complication, the doctor explains.
This complication occurs in 10% to 15% of multiple pregnancies. Of these twins, only 15% to 70% of them survive, making it a very complex entity to manage perinatologically and neonatally, Ramos noted.
Given the uniqueness of this pregnancy and what makes it significant, the obstetrician noted that even with the limitations Cuba faces due to the U.S.-imposed blockade, which limits the acquisition of cutting-edge technology used in these types of cases, this did not prevent the dedicated work of the doctors from bringing these twins into the world.
“The follow-up was very complex because, at the moment, intrauterine therapeutic management is very limited, as we couldn’t perform a fetoscopy, which would be the solution to this problem.”
“The fetoscope is a device used not only in these cases, but also in other genetic conditions such as intrauterine surgeries. If we had it, we wouldn’t have submitted preterm births to the hospital’s perinatal care service,” Ramos added.
“There are problems, I don’t think that’s news, but when you consider the human side, the sensitive side that characterizes us as doctors, things become a little simpler.”
This case could have been done elsewhere using invasive intrauterine procedures; we don’t have that option, and yet we worked harder and obtained a satisfactory result, the doctor concluded.
For her part, through tears, the young mother Yailín tells the story and with a lump in her throat expresses her greatest gratitude to that multidisciplinary team that placed Merliah and Merleth in her arms.
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