TWINS GET SECOND CHANCE THANKS TO NEW PROCEDURE

By the time Mary Jo Filer reached the fifth month of her pregnancy, she was really getting big.

"I just thought it was because this was my third pregnancy and I hadn't really snapped back after my second," said the Jackson mother of twins.

When she went for an ultrasound, the technician found identical twins. Identicals share the same placenta.

"The next few weeks I ballooned," she said. "People that I would see only once a week couldn't believe how big I was getting. Neither could I."

She went for a second ultrasound and the doctors saw that one twin had an excessive amount of amniotic fluid and the other had almost no fluid. She was sent immediately to St. Louis.

Specialists there determined the babies had Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome, which occurs when connecting blood vessels cross the placenta. The blood isn't shared equally. Left untreated, it almost always leads to death of both twins. One dies from an overload of blood. The other become anemic and dies.

While Filer was in St. Louis, Dr. Rueben Quintero of Detroit, Mich., happened to be attending a conference in St. Louis. He had started a new treatment for Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome. With a laser and endoscope, the connecting blood vessels are cauterized. If successful, both twins have a chance to live.

Filer had the procedure done Sept. 20. Dr. Quintero cauterized four vessels. A fifth vessel started bleeding. The doctor had trouble stopping the bleeding. When it did stop, he couldn't see because of blood in the amniotic fluid, but the doctor was hopeful. The following morning, an ultrasound showed both babies were back to pre-operative levels.

Filer and her husband, John, decided to try the procedure again. The second attempt was successful. Allison Faith and Rebecca Hope were born healthy at 36 weeks. The twins, now 8 months, were numbers 9 and 10 in the United States to undergo the procedure.

Over 6,000 babies are afflicted with Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome every year in the United States. About 4,000 will die.

Filer is a member of the Twin to Twin Transfusion Syndrome Foundation, an organization that provides information and support to parents and doctors in hopes of reducing those numbers.