8-day-old conjoined twins successfully separated

Eight-day-old twin girls who were joined at the liver and chest were successfully separated by doctors in Switzerland, reports Yahoo News.

Lydia and Maya, the twin sisters, are believed to be the youngest ever to survive such surgery, the report added.

It took a five-hour operation at hospital in Bern to separate the girls who were born two months prematurely in December with their triplet sister Kamilla.

Referring to a report on Swiss paper Le Matin Dimanche, Yahoo News reported that the doctors had initial plans to separate the girls after few months. However, their conditions started deteriorating a week after their birth.

Weighing just 2.4 pounds each, one of the the twins had high blood pressure and the other had low blood pressure, forcing the doctors to act, the report added.

The surgery was unlike anything the surgeons had done before, Barbara Wildhaber, head of pediatric surgery at the Geneva University Hospital, told Le Matin Dimanche, according to Yahoo News.

"We were prepared for the death of both babies, it was so extreme," the doctor said. "But it was a success" she added.

"It was magnificent," Wildhaber said. "I will remember this entire career."

Le Matin Dimanche also reported that the twin girls are among around 200 separated conjoined twins in the world, according to Yahoo News.