Newborn conjoined twins die Saturday

INDIANAPOLIS - Twin girls who were born with their bodies joined died at a hospital, four days after they were born to a teenage couple from Fort Wayne.\nFollowing the births Tuesday of Stephanie Nicole McCray and Rebecca Marie McCray, doctors at St. Vincent Hospital said the twins were unlikely to survive long because they shared several vital organs, including the liver and intestines.\nTheir parents were at the twins' sides when they died Saturday night, said Janice Cosby, a spokeswoman for the Indianapolis hospital. The cause of death was declared to be abnormalities from birth. Cosby offered no additional details on the deaths.\nThe twins had remained in critical condition from their births. Together they weighed 8 pounds and 5 ounces, had trouble breathing and circulating blood because of how they were conjoined.\nThe twins were not placed on life support at the request of their parents, April McCray, 18, and her 19-year-old husband, Rocky McCray.\nRocky McCray accompanied his wife to the operating room and was able to hold the babies soon after they were born. Within a short time, the girls and their parents were moved to a private room where family and friends were able to visit them.\nThe McCrays had known since August that their twin girls had a rare condition in which the babies' bodies were joined at the torso. Relatives said the couple ruled out terminating the pregnancy.\nOne in every 50,000 to 80,000 pregnancies results in the rare birth defect of twins whose bodies are fused together. Three were born in Indiana in 2002, the only year for which statistics were available.\nThe way in which the McCray twins were conjoined is even more rare, occurring in only about one in 500,000 pregnancies, doctors said.