OPRAH WINFREY: So they came from across the globe. It is a worldwide exclusive, a medical mystery so bizarre that this had doctors baffled: a baby born with two heads. Yes, a condition so unusual that it's one of only 10 cases ever recorded in human history. WINFREY: After fertility treatments, Naglaa Mohamed of Egypt felt blessed when she found out she was pregnant with twins Ms. NAGLAA MOHAMED: I was so very, very happy when I knew I was pregnant. I was very excited I was having twins. WINFREY: Naglaa says this pregnancy was difficult. She was extremely tired and weak. But it wasn't until the delivery that doctors discovered something was terribly wrong. Ms. MOHAMED: When I was entering the operating room, the doctor told me, `You will have a normal delivery for the first baby, but a Caesarean for the second baby.’ WINFREY: Just minutes after baby Noora was born, doctors faced serious complications with the remaining twin. Dr. ABLA EL ALFI: The doctor discovered at the time of delivery that she has a conjoined twin, plus a third baby. WINFREY: Doctors performed an emergency C-section and quickly learned that the second baby, named Manar, was conjoined, she was attached to another head. Manar was diagnosed with the most unusual birth defect in the world. Ms. MOHAMED: It was a surprise for me to see my little daughter like that. I was very afraid and scared for the baby. Dr. EL ALFI: If you look to the babies from the front, from the face, you can see quite clear that Manar has its own face, but from the side she's completely attached to her other twin. WINFREY: The attached head, later named Islaam, was fully developed, with eyes, a nose, a mouth and even a brain. It was able to blink and smile, but was not able to survive on its own. Dr. EL ALFI: Islaam had completely different reactions than Manar. Sometimes Manar was smiling and Islaam was crying. And you can see the different facial reaction of the two babies. WINFREY: Born attached to a head with no body, Manar's birth defect is so rare that most doctors were stunned. WINFREY: Baby Manar is one of only 10 documented cases in history of craniopagus parasiticus. It is an extremely rare birth defect where one of the conjoined twins failed to fully develop a body. Dr. EL ALFI: Craniopagus means that the brain is not well-formed and the two brains are conjoined together. The second one is not complete child or complete baby. WINFREY: The twins had two different brains, but they shared a common blood vessel that fed off of Manar's vital organs. Because the parasitic head was so dependent on baby Manar's body for survival, Manar suffered severe heart failure six times in the first few months of her life. WINFREY: Isn't that unbelievable? Yeah. No, I've never seen anything like that, either. Because the parasitic head, later named Islaam, was sucking the life out of baby Manar, doctors were then forced to perform a radical surgery, a surgery that they had never done and a surgery no child had ever survived. So here is the miracle: Manar is the first baby in the world to ever survive this surgery. Baby Manar is now doing so well, she was able to leave the hospital for the very first time since she was born. And get this: Her first trip is all the way from Egypt to THE OPRAH SHOW. Please welcome baby Manar and her mother Naglaa. WINFREY: That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Dr. EL ALFI: Yes. Cute. WINFREY: Cute, cute, cute baby. Navila Markram is the deputy consul general of Egypt in Chicago, and is here to translate for us. But talk about a miracle baby. Is this not a miracle baby? First of all, welcome. OK. What would you like to say to the doctors? Ms. NAVILA MARKRAM (Deputy Consul General of Egypt): (Translating) First of all, I would like to thank God for Manar. She would like also to thank the president of Egypt and his wife because of their concern about the health of Manar, and all the doctors who really made the separation… WINFREY: Yeah. Ms. MARKRAM: ...and all the nurses and all the workers at the hospital of Benha for such a good effort. WINFREY: Yeah. Because you all made this your mission and you did this on your own without charge. Dr. FAROUK: Yes. Dr. SHARSHERA: Yes. WINFREY: Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. And so can we see her head? May we see her head? May we see the baby's head? Ms. MARKRAM: (Foreign language spoken) WINFREY: This is where all the surgery took place. Her hair will just grow and cover this, is that what will happen? Dr. EL ALFI: And the brain will fill up. The skull will be rounded. WINFREY: And the skull… WINFREY: The brain's going to fill out. Dr. EL ALFI: Yes. Dr. SHARSHERA: We intended to leave a separation between the bone because the brain is growing. WINFREY: Yeah. Dr. SHARSHERA: If we close the separation now, the brain cannot grow. WINFREY: Wow. Well, so when you realized that you had given birth to Manar and then the parasitic baby, were you frightened? Were you disturbed? How did you feel? Ms. MARKRAM: (Foreign language spoken) Ms. MOHAMED: (Foreign language spoken) Ms. MARKRAM: First at the delivery, she didn't know that she had this kind of condition. After five days of the delivery, she knew about it. The doctors wouldn't tell her because they were afraid of her condition. WINFREY: Oh. Of her… Dr. EL ALFI: She was critically ill during the pregnancy. WINFREY: She was critically… Dr. EL ALFI: She was critical. Once she got pregnant, she was critically ill. She couldn't move. She couldn't go up the stairs. She couldn't do any home work. And actually, she was really tired with the three babies inside. So when she got to the delivery, she went in a very bad psychological state, and so the doctors were so scared to tell her that she got an abnormal baby. And she was in a different hospital, in a private hospital. WINFREY: OK. I hear you want your baby to grow up and be a doctor. Is that true? Ms. MARKRAM: (Foreign language spoken) Ms. MOHAMED: (Nods) (Foreign language spoken) WINFREY: Yes. Thank you. Thank you, doctors. Thank you, Naglaa and baby Manar, for visiting us all the way from Egypt to share this miracle story. We applaud you. We applaud the doctors. We applaud the doctors. We applaud you. The baby--miracle. A miracle.
