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Twin saves her sister's life in the womb Wednesday 17th of August 2011 When Andrea Goodrich went for her routine 20-week ultrasound scan of her twins, her doctors found a problem. Around one of the girls' hearts was a "strange halo". Not only that, they also discovered a tear in the amniotic sac. She was referred to a London hospital for further tests but worse was to follow. Within two days she had started bleeding - on top of everything else, the placenta was believed to have ruptured. Doctors told Mr and Mrs Goodrich that the twins had no chance of survival, and they waited for what they thought was an inevitable miscarriage. But a miracle happened in the form of healthy twin, Nico, whose placenta was intact. She moved into a low position in the womb, blocked the leaking and stayed there long enough that she and her sister, Kiki, had precious weeks in which to grow and increase their chances of survival. At 30 weeks, Andrea went into labour, had an emergency c-section and although the girls were born small (Nico at 3 pounds, 6 ounces, and Kiki at 3 pounds, 1 ounce) after spending some time in the special care nursery (Nico was only in for six weeks and Kiki for three months), both girls were healthy enough to go home. Even Kiki's heart is fine. Andrea said, "Doctors don’t know what it was they saw on the scan, but her heart has since developed perfectly normally." Unsurprisingly the twins are very close and share a special bond that is sure to grow as they realise just how miraculous they both are. And reassuring too for mums-to-be that sometimes, in the face of overwhelmingly poor odds, miracles do happen. |
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