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One Twin Opened Eyes, Blinked

Aired August 08, 2002 - 14:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: A promising sign from one of the Guatemalan twins recovering from separation surgery. Doctors say one of the 1-year-olds opened her eyes and blinked this morning.
CNN Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joins us with more on the twins' recovery -- this is a really great sign, isn't it?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is a great sign, Fredricka. This is one of the many signs that doctors are waiting for. What had happened is that just after the surgery, the doctors had put the two little girls, Maria Teresa and Maria de Jesus on paralytic agents. They didn't want them to move because they might cough or do something else to increase the pressure inside their head. Well, the girls must be doing very well, because they have taken them off those paralytic agents, and so now they're doing much better, and they've seen that for Maria de Jesus, her eyes fluttered.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MICHAEL KARPF, DIRECTOR, UCLA MEDICAL CENTER: All we can tell is that she has opened her eyes, seems to be looking around a little bit with all of the anesthesia they had, with all the medicines they're on, I think it is going to be a while before we really can say -- that she's alert. But it certainly is -- is going in the right direction. They are still very much in a critical phase, or still in the postoperative period. They have had a very large amount of anesthesia, they have been on paralytics for a long period of time. So there are multiple different risks from pneumonia to difficulties with the -- with infection.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COHEN: So as you can see here, the doctors at UCLA are what they say "cautiously optimistic." They say there is no reason not to expect a full recovery, but on the other hand, they say there might be brain damage, the girls might be sort of developmentally behind their peers until about age 2, but they said they expect them to catch up to where their peers are by about age five -- Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. Elizabeth Cohen, we will all be saying our prayers for them.

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