LOCKED TWINS
Sometimes when reading the textbooks about some rare complication you wonder if it is only a product of theoretical fantasies or if it could happen in the real world.
When it comes to “locked twins” I can assure you that it is a true clinical entity you should fear the most.
When twins are delivered vaginally and the first twin – twin A – presents as a breech and the second twin – twin B – as a cephalic there is an overhanging risk that the two heads get locked in between, and both babies are stuck. Then you have an obstetrical complication of dimensions – “locked twins”. That is why you always should do a Cesarean on full term twins when twin A presents as a breech and twin B as a cephalic.
In this case of locked twins the delivering mother was brought to the hospital with the body of twin A already delivered. While twin B was alive “fortunately” twin A was dead, which made the procedure a lot much easier:
Twin A was decapitated – twin B was rotated to breech by internal version and extracted on the feet. After that the head of twin A was easily extracted manually with a finger in the mouth.
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VIDEO ← click for video |
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If both twins had been dead the procedure would have been the same, but had both been alive I would have been forced to deliver twin B by cesarean and after that twin A by extraction vaginally.