Momo twins Jenna and Jillian Thistlewaite are still together two years after being born holding each other's hands. (Photo : Twitter/People Magazine)
Twin girls who were born holding each other's hands two years ago in Akron, Ohio have now grown into toddlers with a sweet and strong bond ever since: both of them still refuse to be apart from each other.
Jenna and Jillian Thistlewaite were born 45 seconds apart on May 9, 2014, according to a previous report made by The Daily Mail. They were born as monoamniotic twins, or "MoMo" for short, which occurs in 1 of 35,000 to 60,000 among identical twin pregnancies, which is as low as 0.002 percent.
Jenna's and Jillian's mom, Sarah Thistlewaite, delivered them at the 33rd week, which is close to the 8th month of the pregnancy. They weren't born as conjoined twins, but a minute after they were born, they clasped each other's hands. The twins were placed side by side once they have gotten out of their mom's womb, and that was when they held hands.
Two years later into the present, the twins display the same kind of bond and emotional intimacy between them. They have grown to become each other's best friend, and they happen to like the same thing every time: from food, toys, outdoor activities, and swimming, according to an interview by People Magazine with the mother's twins.
"They don't like being apart from each other," she said. "They're like two peas in a pod." She said that sometimes, she and her husband separate the twins whenever one of them goes outside to the store, but both of them get quite upset and would always ask for each other's company. They have learned to become inseparable.
Twins manifest emotional connections that are uncommonly present with babies who were born alone. For Jenna and Jillian, the bond is surely not to disappear anytime soon as they grow up.
There may be competition sometimes between the two, but their parents are working hard to minimise their fights. They often fight over the same thing, but most of the time the two get along well.
MoMo twins have a high survival rate, consistenly as high as 81 to 95 percent, but they are the rarest form of twin pregnancies. They're always identical and share the same placenta but they have their own umbilical cords.
