Twins will get 'fighting chance'

A Shropshire woman who is due to give birth to conjoined twins says she is giving them a "fighting chance" to let them "prove everybody wrong".

Laura Williams, 18, of Shrewsbury, and her husband Aled, from Anglesey, expect the babies to be delivered by Caesarean section in a London hospital.

The girls, Faith and Hope, are believed to be joined at the chest.

Mrs Williams, who said she would "never go" for an abortion, added she cried when she found out they were conjoined.

In an interview with the Mail on Sunday, she said a doctor told her she should, "get rid of them and if I didn't get rid of them, they'd probably end up dying in me or I'd end up losing them before 16 weeks anyway".

Mr Williams added: "He also did say that if she didn't get rid of them, there could be a possibility of never having kids again."

Mrs Williams, who is being cared for at Birmingham Women's Hospital, said she found out the twins were conjoined at a 12-week scan.

She said she was "just going to take every day as it comes".

Separate hearts

She added the names Faith and Hope were chosen because she was "always hoping that everything's all right and Mum's always got the faith in them".

Asked if the couple were worried how people would react, Mr Williams said: "People say things sometimes maybe they don't mean.

"They'd most probably say they could be some sort of alien or there's so many different things.

"At the end of the day we're strong enough to fight it all the way."

The unborn girls are believed to be joined at the chest from their breastbone to their navel, but have separate hearts.

The couple are expected to travel to a London hospital later this week.

Conjoined twins are rare and figures for them range from one in about every 200,000 births to one in about 400,000 live births.

Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapova, from Russia, were the oldest known surviving conjoined twins. They died in April 2003 aged 53.