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One in every 80th couple will walk into their scheduled ultrasound to find that they have been blessed with twins. A third of those will be monochorionic and diamniotic twin pregnancies which have a single placenta shared between two babies, each who sits in their own fluid sac. Approximately 15 to 20 percent of these twins develop a life threatening condition known as twin to twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS) which can transform this happy twin pregnancy into a nightmare.

At one point in time TTTS meant severe morbidity or a fatality of one or both of the twins, thanks to today's technologies we now have interventions such as selective laser ablation surgery of the connecting vessels on the placenta which are causing the transfusion syndrome, by which morbidity and mortality of the fetus is greatly reduced. Within one of the leading hospitals in the country is a center which performs these life-saving procedures, one of only the four in the country. Within the walls of this hospital weekly multi-disciplinary meetings occur which discuss each case including this one. These meetings include an array of physician, health care and non-health care groups such as, fetal surgeons, cardiologists, geneticists, internalists, fetal medicine physicians, social workers, ethicists, operating room nurses, and many more. Eventually, those cases deemed appropriate for selective laser ablation were provided that option. The overall morbidity and mortality which result from laser ablation surgery is much lower then those of other possible interventions for this disease. Though not a wide spread intervention as of yet, as technologies continue to develop, laser ablation surgery is the wave of the future in treatment of Twin to Twin Transfusion syndrome.