News

The mother who gave up conjoined Bangladeshi newborn twins for adoption said Saturday she is overjoyed the toddlers have been successfully separated and wants them to grow up in Australia.

"My babies are alive and doing well. It''s the best news I''ve ever got in my life", a tearful Lovely Mollick told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from her home in Khulna district, 85 miles (137 kilometers) southwest of Dhaka.

The twins, who turn 3 next month, had been joined at the top of their heads and shared brain tissue and blood vessels. They were separated Tuesday after 25 hours of delicate surgery in a hospital in Melbourne, Australia''s second largest city, and then underwent an additional six hours of reconstructive work.

The charity that brought Trishna and Krishna to Australia two years ago for the surgery, Children First Foundation, will continue to support the twins as they undergo further medical treatment in Australia for at least the next two years, chief executive Margaret Smith said Friday.

Trishna awoke from a medically induced coma Thursday. Officials announced Saturday that Krishna woke late Friday and was progressing well.

Their 23-year-old mother said she made the heartbreaking decision to give up her daughters to a Dhaka orphanage after giving birth by cesarean section because she could not properly care for their special needs.

While she and her factory worker husband, Kartik Mollick, 35, wanted to maintain a relationship with their daughters, both parents hoped that the twins would be raised in Australia.

Smith said it was too early to say whether the girls'' legal guardian, Children First Foundation founder Moira Kelly, would adopt them.

Trishna has been talking and behaving normally since she regained consciousness on Thursday.

Kelly said Saturday that that she was able to relax for the first time since the surgery when Krishna awoke Friday and made a characteristic gesture.

Both sisters were neurologically sound, Kelly said.

Krishna is expected to have a longer period of adjustment as the separation brought more changes to her body and brain''s blood circulation. Both girls were in serious but stable condition.

Wirginia Maixner, the Royal Children''s Hospital director of neurosurgery, said there may be minor changes to the girls from where their brains were separated but that overall the brains looked good. MRI scans Wednesday showed no signs of brain injury.

Doctors had earlier said there was a 50-50 chance that one of the girls could suffer brain damage from the complicated separation.

An aid worker first saw Trishna and Krishna in an orphanage when they were a month old, and contacted the Children First Foundation.

The foundation raised almost 250,000 Australian dollars ($229,000) for the cost of caring for the twins in between numerous earlier surgeries to separate blood vessels connecting their brains. A mystery benefactor funded all hospital costs, Smith said.