Conjoined twins were separated five years ago, and here how they look now

PEOPLE

The fabled Delaney twins never fail to amaze when it comes to their survival instinct.

Prior to the dreadful year of 2016, Heather and Riley Delaney, siblings from North Carolina, would not have given much consideration to the definition of the word “craniopagus.”

In order to travel to clinics and receive treatment in the hopes of preserving their lives, the young parents had to forgo purchasing their two newborn daughters lovely attire.

Their first two kids, Erin and Abby, were born with their heads fused together, or craniopagus.

Although the procedure to separate conjoined twins is not without danger, it often has good results.

In contrast, the fused skull bones of the Delaney newborns prevented the girls’ growing brains from doing so properly while they were in the womb.

Ten weeks early, both daughters were born by caesarean section.

Parents are forced to make the hard choice between sending their infants for potentially deadly separation procedure or choosing to spend their short time with them.

When Erin and Abby split up when their baby was 11 months old, Delaney gambled and tried his luck.

The physicians informed the kids’ parents that one of the daughters would likely not survive.

Disentangling the connections between bones and brains is still a gigantic task, but it is not insurmountable.

According to neurosurgeons, even a millimeter to the right or left might result in a child being chronically disabled, if not death.

As the doctors had anticipated, one of the newborns suffered more than the other.

The stakes included Abby’s life and death. The daughters’ recovery from their inducing comas took a whole week after the surgery, despite the fact that the doctors were able to save her and bring them back to life.

Abby followed shortly after Erin regained consciousness.

The five years after they were separated have seen Erin and Abby mature, but they haven’t stopped using their bodies to “fight.”