Shocked to learn at her 16-week ultrasound that she was carrying twins, Megan Duggan could never have imagined the challenges her boys would face before they were even born.
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Megan's twins were diagnosed at 21 weeks with a rare condition known as twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.
Twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome is a condition where the blood from one twin (the donor) is transfused into the other twin (the recipient) via blood vessels in their common placenta.
The condition occurs in 15 per cent of identical twins that share a placenta, which equates to about 42 Victorian pregnancies every year. If not corrected, the condition kills about 90 per cent of affected unborn twins.
On September 11 2006, Dr Steve Cole from the Royal Women's Hospital and Dr Andrew Daley from Monash Medical Centre performed in-utero laser surgery on Megan's twins to correct the condition.
The surgery was one of the first conducted by the newly established Victorian Fetal Therapy Service, a collaboration between the Royal Women's Hospital, Monash Medical Centre and the Mercy Hospital for Women.
"The Victorian Fetal Therapy Service will change the way we are able to care for women and unborn babies," Dr Cole said.
"The whole area of fetal therapy is an expanding and exciting area and it may be that the skills we develop in this technique springboard to other fetal interventions in the future."
Megan gave birth to Flynn and Jaxan on 5 December 2006 and, after four days in the Women's newborn special care unit, they were able to return home to Ballarat.
The Victorian Fetal Therapy Service was established with a generous donation from the Pratt Foundation.
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