Couple has region’s first conjoined twins

By Sara Diamond
Anchor / Medical Reporter / WJHL
Published: January 5, 2009

JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. – Two little girls made history in the Tri-Cities and they’re only a couple of days old.

On Sunday, they became the first conjoined twins born in the region.

Victoria Ford, 21, of Unicoi County, saw her doctor just a few weeks after her son, Ethan, was born last spring.  That’s when she found out she was pregnant again. The surprises kept coming when she was told she was having twins and they were conjoined.

“I thought they was lyin’. I didn’t believe it,” she said Monday.

Dr. Michael W. DeVoe, head of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Johnson City Medical Center, says conjoined twins are rare.

“The incidence is anywhere from one in 50,000 to one in 200,000 deliveries. So with Tennessee having about 80,000 deliveries a year, we probably have about one set or so delivered and born in the state each year,” he said.

Ford was originally due in March, and was supposed to go to Vanderbilt Medical Center to deliver. She prepared for the births by visiting doctors at Vanderbilt, as well as her physician, Dr. Eva Pickler, who practices in Johnson City.

But the babies arrived Friday – 10 weeks early, to be exact.  But DeVoe said they were ready.

“We had two physicians there, several advanced practice nurses, other nurses and respiratory therapists with all of the equipment and people there we needed,” he said.
Pickler delivered the twins via Cesarean section, taking only a few minutes longer than a regular birth.
“They [babies] were showing signs of distress, and it was felt the better thing to do at this point was to get the twins delivered and transport them over to Vanderbilt, rather than take the chance of what would happen while she was in transport,” she said.

Zoey Marie and Keylee Ann were born at 2:54 a.m. Sunday. Ford says they have black curly hair and each weighed 2.6 pounds. Both are 15 inches long.

Zoey and Keylee are joined at the abdomen and share a liver.  DeVoe says separating them will not be life-threatening to either baby.

“The way the babies are joined was actually good because it is one of the few types of conjoined twins that can easily be separated,” he said.
And the way they were joined helped them go through the trauma of birth.  When they were born, Pickler and DeVoe said the babies had their arms around each other and one baby had the other’s nose in her mouth.

Ford and her husband, 25-year-old Brian Miller, are anxious to get to Vanderbilt to hold their babies, and are trying to find reliable transportation.  Once there, they will stay at the Ronald McDonald House.

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