Surviving Twin Still Improving, Doctor Reports

PHILADELPHIA —  Doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said Saturday that the condition of surviving Siamese twin Angela Lakeberg continued to improve.

“Angela is increasingly active with good blood pressure and good circulation,” said Dr. John Templeton, one of the surgeons who lead Friday’s 5 1/2-hour operation. Angela was listed in critical but stable condition Saturday.

Meanwhile, the baby’s parents were elated with the outcome.

“I feel great,” Kenneth Lakeberg told reporters at the hospital. “The doctors gave us a 1% chance, and here we are with this little baby with her eyes open.”

Reitha Lakeberg, looking drained from the experience, said: “I’m proud of both my babies.” Angela’s twin, Amy, died during the operation.

“Yesterday was difficult. I just pray that everything will work out,” the mother said.

Funeral arrangements for Amy were incomplete Saturday.

Doctors decided Thursday to perform the separation surgery, which they knew would kill one twin. The Lakeberg babies’ malformed, six-chamber heart was neither strong enough nor big enough for both to live.

The Wheatfield, Ind., couple said Saturday that their surviving 7-week-old baby was “sucking on her pacifier and squeezing our fingers.”

Doctors at Loyola University Medical Center in suburban Chicago, who had cared for the girls since their birth on June 29, had put both girls’ chances of surviving surgery at zero and the chance that one would survive at 1%.

Of the previous cases of conjoined twins with a single heart operated on at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, none have survived more than 3 1/2 months, officials said.