- Abby and Brittany Hensel Bio, Are They Married or Engaged? Here Are Facts
- 30 Interesting Things About Famous Conjoined Twins Abby And Brittany Hensel - Worldemand
- Dr. Aaron Tabor, MD encourages you with three Life Prescriptions!
Abby and Brittany Hensel are conjoined twins. The two became household names after they let the media into their unique lives for a program on TLC. The twin sisters share the same body but have several organs that are different. They do not share a heart, stomach, spins, lungs or spinal cord. The twins were born in Carver County, Minnesota, to Patty, a registered nurse, and Mike Hensel, a carpenter and landscaper. They have a younger brother and sister.
The two have been featured in programs on several media outlets and the world is fascinated with these unusual sisters. Here are some interesting things you may not know about the Hensel twins. Each twin controls her half of their body, operating one arm and one leg. As infants, the initial learning of physical processes that required bodily coordination, such as clapping, crawling, and walking, required the cooperation of both twins. While they can eat and write separately and simultaneously, activities such as running and swimming require them to coordinate and alternate their actions symmetrically.
Abby and Brittany are one of the rarest sets of conjoined twins. Conjoined twins usually occurs once in every , births and the survival rate is very low. The fact that these two sisters are still alive today is a miracle.
Each twin controls half of their body. Each twin is able to operate one arm and one leg, whichever is on their half of the body. Each one can write on their own, but some activities like running or swimming take the coordination of the two. Each twin manages one side of their conjoined body. The sense of touch of each is restricted to her body half; this shades off at the midsagittal plane such that there is a small amount of overlap at the midline. Stomach aches, however, are felt only by the twin on the opposite side. They are effective in cooperatively using their limbs when both hands or both legs are required.
By coordinating their efforts, they are able to walk, run, swim, and ride a bicycle normally—all tasks that they learned at a normal speed. Together, they can type on a computer keyboard at a normal speed and drive a car. However, their disparate heights Abby, 5 ft 2 in 1. The twins both have their own drivers license. They had to take the test twice, once for each of them. While they are driving Abby must control everything on the right and Brittany controls everything on the left. The two girls have very different personalities and interests.
Abby loves math while Brittany loves to write. They had to take the tests twice, once for each twin.
Abby and Brittany Hensel Bio, Are They Married or Engaged? Here Are Facts
They both graduated from high school in They had considered pursuing different concentrations within that major, but the volume of extra coursework was prohibitive. They graduated with Bachelor of Arts degrees in The only thing that bothers them is when they get stared at by strangers or when random people want to get pictures with them.
None have shown up in their case. They intensely dislike being stared at or photographed by strangers while going about their private lives. They also stated that they hoped that by providing some information about themselves, they would be able to lead otherwise fairly typical social lives. The twins become known around the world when they were 6 years old. The twins at first wanted to pursue different concentrations while they were in college.
Even though they share the same body, the twins have always been treated as separate identities. Two pair even buys separate tickets whenever they go to the movies. Life followed up with another story in September In , an updated story of them at age 11 filmed in was published in Time and again in Life. In , Advanced Medical made another documentary, Joined for Life: A UK television special followed in as part of the series Extraordinary People.
Joined for Life was shown by the BBC in the UK in May , and covers the period from their finishing college to starting a part-time teaching job.
30 Interesting Things About Famous Conjoined Twins Abby And Brittany Hensel - Worldemand
There are only four sets of conjoined twins known to have shared an undivided torso and two legs and survived into adulthood. Many twins like Abby and Brittany have congenital heart defects or organ anomalies. Thankfully Abby and Brittany have not been affected by these issues. Abby and brittany have different styles so the clothes that they wear express that.
Dr. Aaron Tabor, MD encourages you with three Life Prescriptions!
Since Abby and Brittany are conjoined, they share a body but have their own separate vital organs. The twins have their own heart, stomach, spine, lungs and spinal cord.
However, they do share a reproductive system, making separation surgery a difficult and overall dangerous situation. It was so fascinating to see this in real life. Conjoined twins are extremely rare, occurring only once out of every , births.
However, Abby and Brittany are dicephalic parapagus twins, which make up only 11 percent of those conjoined twins statistics. The fact that they survived is a miracle in itself. The girls must work together in order to walk and perform normal tasks with each twin controlling one arm and leg. They are a true team working in sync and have to really trust each other. We wonder who the bossy one is and who takes the lead and who follow. While it took longer than most toddlers, the girls eventually were able to successfully sync their movements.
We are really in awe of these inspiring girls. When it comes to walking, their mom has said that twins have adopted their own style. Brittany tends to walk on her tip-toes, while Abby has more of a flat gait.
It sort of gives them an individuality. According to them, the risks were too great with most experts concluding neither twin would survive the operation. Abby and Brittany agreed. After the success of the documentary, TLC offered the girls their own show. Unfortunately, it only lasted one season of eight episodes. We thought it was great.
Abby and Brittany are able to do most things. They can ride a bike, swim, run and even drive a car. They just have to make sure to coordinate properly in order to do it well. Thankfully, these two girls are pros after living conjoined for so many years. According to Brittany, the girls had to take the written driving test twice, as well as pass the supervised test two times in a row. They are such a great team.
One really cool fact about Abby and Brittany is they each have their own strengths that compliment the other.