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Teenager to give birth to conjoined twins

A teenager is preparing to deliver conjoined twins.
An 18-year-old from Shropshire is set to become Britain's youngest ever mother of conjoined twins.

Laura Williams from Shrewsbury already has an 18-month-old daughter and her new twins are due to be delivered by Caesarean section later this week.

The teenager and her husband Aled rejected doctors' advice to abort the twins because they said they did not feel right about terminating the lives.

Mrs Williams is currently being cared for at Birmingham Women's Hospital but will travel to a leading London hospital in order to deliver the twins.

Her soon-to-be born daughters, who the couple have named Faith and Hope, are joined from the breastbone to the top of the navel and have separate hearts, so their chances for survival are thought to be good.

Conjoined twins are rare and figures for them range from one in about every 200,000 births to one in about 400,000 live births.

Mrs Williams said: "Sometimes I think about the worst so I'm prepared for it, but if it works out well, I'll be really happy.

"If they're meant to be in this world and if they've come this far, we've got to hope they'll make it the rest of the way."

She said that it felt like a "normal pregnancy" and described her daughters as "wrigglers".

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