'Agony' of Siamese twins' mother

The twins' mother has admitted she is "petrified"

A woman who gave birth to Siamese twins joined at the heart has spoken of her agony at knowing that one must die.

Baby girls Natasha and Courtney Smith were just hours old when they were taken from their mother Tina May on Monday, to be transferred to the hospital where doctors plan to separate them.

If the twins are not parted, doctors fear they will both die within a year as their shared heart is not strong enough to keep them both alive.

My happiness is tinged with the agony of knowing the ordeal that lies ahead

Tina May, twins' mother

But the operation looks set to trigger a storm of controversy like the one over the separation of Gracie and Rosie Attard, whose fate had to be eventually decided by British judges.

Ms May, 23, from St Albans, told the Sun newspaper on Tuesday: "When I saw them for the first time they looked so beautiful that I melted with love for them.

"But my happiness is tinged with the agony of knowing the ordeal that lies ahead for us all."

The pair were born by Caesarean section at Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital, west London, at about 1000 BST on Monday.

Religious grounds

Ms May and her fiancé Dennis Smith discovered they were expecting conjoined twins following a routine scan in November.

As a Catholic she was against having an abortion on religious grounds.

Professor Nick Fisk, the doctor who delivered the twins, was expected to speak about the birth at a news conference at the London hospital on Tuesday.

The couple have an 11-month-old son Damien and had told The Sun before the birth about the horror of knowing one of their unborn children would have to die.

'Petrified'

Ms May said: "Each time I feel them kicking, the agony of what lies ahead really hits me but I know we had to do it for Natasha's sake.

"Whenever one of them sticks out their little foot and I touch it, tears well up in my eyes knowing it could be the daughter we lose.

"I am petrified."

The twins also share a liver which will have to be divided but doctors believe this will regenerate.

Conjoined twins occur in about one in 100,000 pregnancies and only about 19 sets have been dealt with at British hospitals since 1984.

Siamese twins Gracie and Rosie Attard made legal history a year earlier when the High Court ruled an operation to separate them should go ahead despite the opposition of their parents.

Michael and Rina Attard, Catholics from the Maltese island of Gozo who had brought the twins to Britain for medical care, opposed the operation because it was known Rosie would die.

Rosie died during the process at St Mary's Hospital, Manchester, but doctors said Gracie could lead a normal life.