Conjoined twins born at San José hospital

Doctors at San Juan de Dios hospital in San José successfully delivered a pair of twin girls conjoined at the abdomen and thorax. According to a news release from the hospital, the twins, who were born earlier this month, are in stable condition.

The babies, born to a 26-year-old resident of San José, are the first set of conjoined twins born in Costa Rica since 2009. Conjoined twins are extremely rare, occurring in approximately one out of every 50,000 pregnancies, yet there are currently three other women pregnant with conjoined twins in Costa Rica.

Multiple births in general have made news this year in Costa Rica. In May, the country experienced a series of multiple births with one woman giving birth to the country’s first set of sextuplets after receiving fertility treatments. The high number of risky pregnancies spurred the Costa Rican Doctors and Surgeons Association to create new guidelines for fertility treatments.

Fertility treatments are just one possible cause for multiple births and do not wholly explain the increase in these types of pregnancies. Doctors say the overlap of conjoined twin pregnancies is coincidence, but Alexis Castillo, president of the College of Doctors, confirmed to Costa Rican television network Teletica that doctors were looking into possible explanations for the increases in these types of pregnancies.