Siamese twins are 'a gift from God'

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Lisa Chamberlain, 25, had a scan last week which showed her embryo had two heads and one body - making them dicephalus twins.

The staunch Catholic said doctors advised her to undergo an abortion but this was ruled out after talking over the matter with husband Mike.

Mrs Chamberlain, from Portsmouth, told The Sun: "To me, my twins are a gift from God and we're determined to give them a chance of life."

The twins were diagnosed after the former RSPCA worker was taken into the city's St Mary's Hospital on Wednesday with back pain. She had fallen pregnant on December 18.

After the scan results appeared, Mrs Chamberlain said doctors and nurses "kept asking each other if they were babies who were close together - or 'something else'.

"Then the emergency obstetrician was called and he took over. He said my babies only had one body and were joined very high up."

She added: "Some might think my twins are strange, but to me they're just special. Everything happens for a reason. Mike and I have spent over seven years trying to have children and we might not get another go."

The couple hope the babies will follow the example of US Siamese twins Abigail and Brittany Hensel. They were born in March 1990 with shared organs below the navel and are still alive.

But conjoined twins expert Professor Lewis Spitz told The Sun that Mrs Chamberlain's embryo should be terminated. They would have a greater risk of infection, he said, and have two heads controlling one side of the body's nervous impulses.