They even had their own tv show on TLC for a while. Since they share one reproductive system, will they ever have children? Their father Mike believes that his daughters will get married someday.New Germany, MN – Abby and Brittany have been making headlines since they were born. Those were just rumors but they made people think about their future. Three years ago, there was news about Brittany being engaged. The two sisters love each other very much but people are now wondering what would happen if one fall in love to someone whom the other one hates. Abigail got bored of being in the bed all the time and said that she need separation to which Brittany started crying and Abigail promised her that they would never part. The twins never wished to separate from each other except once when Brittany suffered for pneumonia for the first time in childhood. Brittany has suffered from pneumonia twice and Abigail, the stubborn one, always helped Brittany in tough times
One scratches the itch of other in case the former’s hand doesn’t reach the area. They eat together in separate plates with one holding the fork and other one the knife to cut the food. Image source: The two girls rarely fight. They make sure that they scold the right girl if they ever commit some mistake. That’s what we have encouraged them to do, to develop their own individuality as much as possible.” T hey buy two separate cinema tickets, separate meals and two different birthday cakes for them. Patty said “when children ask the girls if they have two heads, they say they don’t but that each has their own head. They always treated them as two different individuals and taught the same to them. They just could not bear the fact that one of them might die or get physically handicapped for the rest of her life. The parents never thought of getting their twins separated. Their dresses are made on special order with two different necklines, leggings with different color for each leg and different shoe for each foot to reflect their unique taste. Although the two girls have different liking’s and different urge to sleep and eat, they still coordinate among themselves to work as a single body. However, their mother wondered who would get a driving ticket if they ever get caught up for speeding up.īoth Mike and Patty have encouraged the girls to develop their own individuality They have kept the twins and their other two children away from media. They drive easily with each twin controlling the steering wheel with one arm. They also passed their driving test on their 16th birthday. On their 16th birthday, the girls were shot for a documentary for TLC. After that, they started leading a normal, private life with their family until their 16th birthday. At the age of six, they appeared in Oprah Winfrey show and on the cover of Life magazine. The twins attended a private church school. Despite of being operated several times, the twins have remained in good health. They were born with three arms, one arm was removed surgically at the time of birth. Still the twins work in a coordinated fashion while typing e-mails, playing piano, or playing their favorite sports like bowling, volleyball, cycling, softball, swimming, etc. Abigail, the right twin can’t feel anything on the left side of body while Brittany, the left twin can’t feel anything on her right side. From their waist down, all organs are shared including the reproductive system, intestines and bladder. They have two hearts, two spines joined at the pelvis, four lungs, two oesophagi, three kidneys, one ribcage, one liver, a partially shared nervous system and a shared circulatory system. The Hensel twins are a result of a fertilized egg that failed to separate inside the womb. But Abby and Brittany proved the doctors’ speculations wrong. The doctors warned the parents Patty who is a registered nurse and Mike, a carpenter and landscaper that their daughters would not survive long.
According to the statistics, one set of twins in every 40,000 is born connected to the other sibling and only 1 percent of such twins survive beyond one year. Their parents consider them as the most special children in the world since these twins are one of the rarest set of dicephalus twins to survive infancy. Image Source: Ībby and Brittany were born on Main Minnesota, US.