Rare Australian conjoined twins who had one body and two faces die

A Current Affair Faith and Hope passed away on Tuesday after fighting to survive for almost three weeks.

Their short lives were filled with faith and hope.

The rare conjoined twins born to Australian parents earlier this month passed away on Tuesday.

Faith and Hope suffered from a condition called diprosopus, where twins share a skull and a body, but are born with two separate brains joined at the stem, and two faces.

“Our precious baby girls, who gave it a good fight, are headed to the arms of the angels who will give them their wings,” parents Renee Young and Simon Howie said in a statement released to NineMsn.

The mom and dad from Sydney found out about the twins’ rare condition 19 weeks in the pregnancy. Doctors advised them to terminate the pregnancy, but abortion was not an option.

“If I only get two days with the baby, I only get two days with the baby, at least I have some time with it,” Young told Australia’s ‘A Current Affair.’

A Current Affair Parents Simon Howie and Renee Young refused to accept doctors’ suggestions to terminate the pregnancy. A Current Affair Renee Young gave birth by emergency C-section six weeks before her due date. A Current Affair Faith and Hope were diprosopus, meaning they had one body but two faces

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There have been less than 40 known cases of diprosopus since the 1860s. Many of these babies are stillborn or die shortly after their birth.

Faith and Hope were delivered by emergency caesarean on May 8 and weighed just over 4 pounds. They lived for almost three weeks.

Before their death, the parents said their little girls had developed distinct personalities.

“Faith tends to cry a little more, while Hope takes after her mum and likes to sleep a lot,” Young told Women’s Day. “Faith blows little bubbles and loves sucking her thumb but Hope prefers the dummy [pacifier].”

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