For 29 years, unique conjoined twins Abigail and Brittany Hensel have lived full and fulfilling lives despite physical challenges, a major operation, a lack of positive predictions for a healthy future, and the surprised looks of passersby.
Through their example, the girls prove that you can overcome any difficulty and achieve your dreams if you truly want to.
We at ADME took a deep dive into the girls’ lives through the documentary Joined for Life and their own show Abby & Brittany, and we are ready to introduce you to these cheerful twins and their remarkable story.
The girls’ parents were expecting one baby
Abby and Brittany were born on March 7, 1990, in Minnesota. The birth of the twins came as a real surprise to both the doctors and their parents, who were expecting a single baby girl. The ultrasound had not indicated that there were twins or that the baby had any abnormalities.
During the delivery, the girls’ mother realized that something was wrong: the doctors were panicking and did not show her the baby for a long time. When the parents finally saw the twins, they immediately fell in love with them, and all of the doctors’ fears turned out to be unfounded.
The sisters’ lives were hanging by a thread from their very first minutes. According to statistics, only one organism survives out of every 30 million conjoined twins. In the other cases, the internal organs fail within the first 24 hours after birth. Despite the doctors’ grim predictions, the twins made it past that critical point and continued to develop year after year like physically healthy children.
There was never any serious discussion about separating the girls: such a decision would have meant either the death of one of them or significant disabilities for both. The twins themselves were also against the operation. They were used to living together and having the person closest to them always by their side—someone who would understand and support them.
Their parents did everything they could to make sure the sisters felt like ordinary children, despite the lack of information about their condition. The family enrolled the girls in a regular school, where they learned not to pay attention to curious looks and to make friends.
Their mother, Patty Hensel, always refused to allow experiments to be performed on the twins, even when such research might have helped predict their future development and health.
Two heads, two arms and legs, two spinal columns, three lungs, two hearts, one liver, two stomachs, three kidneys, a shared circulatory system, and shared reproductive organs—the girls’ anatomy is truly unique.
Even today, doctors cannot fully explain how their shared body functions with such remarkable coordination.
Each twin can control only her own side of the body and does not feel touch on the other side. For example,
Abby cannot feel when someone shakes Brittany’s hand, and vice versa. From an early age, the girls learned to synchronize their movements and coordinate their actions. They became so perfectly coordinated that they easily learned to play the piano, swim, ride a bicycle, and take part in sports.
Scientists believe that the girls may have shared neural connections unlike those found in any other human organism.
This may explain why the twins can seem to read each other’s thoughts, write emails without consulting one another, and even finish each other’s sentences.
Their bodies’ needs also appear to be synchronized intuitively: when Abby gets thirsty, Brittany starts feeling thirsty as well; when one of them wants to fix her hair or makeup, the other helps her.
How Are the Twins Different?
