Do you know about Craniofacial duplication?
If so, Have you ever wondered what causes Craniofacial Duplication?
Well, these were the same questions medical doctors and researchers asked, when the first case of Double face occurred in the 16th century. One weird part of this anomaly is it's unusual existence and formation in new born infants.
Since its first case in 1884, only 35 cases has been recorded of this malformation in medical history.However, In today's article, I'll dive into the true nature and cause of Craniofacial duplication.
What is Craniofacial duplication
This foetal malformation is a partial or incomplete division of the facial structure. Medical experts call it "Diprosopus", but I call it "double face", because it's an unusual variant of conjoined twinning.
They're two variant of craniofacial duplication, the partial and complete duplication. There's less incidence and danger to babies with partial duplication, because its just a duplication of few features of the face, like the mouth, nose or whatnot. And it could be extremely managed with less complications.
However, infants with complete duplication suffer a high dose of anomalies in their central nervous system, respiratory system, gastrointestinal system, and cardiovascular system, because these are all shared between two faces and could therefore lead to more severe complications later on.
The earliest known report of double face (Craniofacial duplication) in history, has been credited to Ambroise Paré.
Causes of Double Face
You'd find various causes of Craniofacial duplication on the internet,, but the major primary cause I've come to understand, is the incomplete separation of foetal twins.
This is either an instance of one identical twin, absorbing the other, or a defect during embryogenesis in the early stages of pregnancy (embryogenesis often occurs in the 2nd week of pregnancy)
Notable cases of Double face (Craniofacial duplication)
In 2020, there was a viral report of a baby born, in South Carolina, with two functioning mouths. The abnormal mouth which was a potrusion on the lower right part of her jaw, has a tongue of it's own and teeth cavity around it. The tongue of the duplicated mouth also function in sync with the tongue of the normal mouth, all moving in the same direction. Quite Creepy
Another case, reported in March of 2008, in India, was a baby, Lali Singh, born with a complete duplication of the face. Two pairs of eyes, nose, and mouth. With just a pair of ears distributed evenly on both sides of the heads. She could also feed from both sides of her head, and before she died in May 10, 2008, Lali Singh was referred to, as the reincarnation of India's most popular goddess.
Treatment for double faced infants
Currently there are only few surgical options for infants with partial duplication with varying success rate.
However, the issue of complete duplication still remain a debate, because there's is a very low success rate on any surgical procedures in amending a complete duplicated face, like that of Lali Singh.
Did I mention that the girl with duplicated mouth was treated and her face readjusted with the removal of the duplicate mouth potrusion on her face.
She's healthy and feeding well, after 6 months of her surgery.