The researchers, from Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea Hospital, said it was “extremely exciting” to have a non-invasive method to treat the condition, without the need to put a needle or telescope into the mother’s tummy.<\/p>\n
But before the procedure can be offered more widely, larger studies on more pregnant women are needed to show it can be an effective treatment.<\/p>\n
![\"Brioney](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/bbc_us_articles_995\/39fdfa0f64439d03116b74a884dab7d6.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Nancy and Margo were born at nearly 34 weeks, both weighing more than 3 lbs [Brioney Garrett]<\/p>\n
Brioney said her daughters were “my miracle twins”.<\/p>\n
“We were in a very dire situation and I don’t forget that,” she said. “It stays with me always how things could have been. Every day I still count my blessings.”<\/p>\n
TTTS affects between 10-15% of identical twins that share a placenta – about 300-400 pregnancies each year in the UK.<\/p>\n
The unbalanced blood flow between babies leads to a build-up of excess fluid around the larger recipient baby and a dangerous lack of fluid around the smaller donor baby, potentially harming both.<\/p>\n
Usually, treatment involves inserting a needle into the womb to either drain some of the fluid or seal blood vessels using a laser.<\/p>\n
![\"Identical](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/bbc_us_articles_995\/0be9e861cf148d90abf93afcbca7e19b.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Nancy and Margo are four years old and looking forward to starting school [Brioney Garrett]<\/p>\n
Block blood flow<\/p>\n
For Brioney, the procedure was more straightforward and took about 20 minutes. She lay flat as a specially-designed machine fired high-powered ultrasound waves at tiny blood vessels in her placenta. “It was very quick and pretty painless,” she said.<\/p>\n
Brioney and the other pregnant women, who were from the UK and across Europe, took part in the study after scans detected the condition during early pregnancy.<\/p>\n
Prof Christoph Lees, head of fetal medicine at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and professor of obstetrics at Imperial College London, said the research was “very promising”.<\/p>\n
“If this could work in a fully-fledged study, it could give hope to a lot of women who otherwise might have to have quite invasive treatment,” he said.<\/p>\n
Ultrasound is regularly used in medical scans to produce images of the body, and is known to be very safe – but this type of ultrasound is completely different and much more focused.<\/p>\n
The heat created by its beams can seal blood vessels just 2mm in diameter, about 5-6cm below the skin.<\/p>\n
The procedure blocked blood flow in 90% of the blood vessels treated as part of the study, and there were no unwanted side-effects.<\/p>\n
![\"Brioney](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/bbc_us_articles_995\/94e6c44b2ed9bf6ac2d6017445b399a5.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Brioney is very proud of her twin girls and grateful to the doctors who treated her [Brioney Garrett]<\/p>\n
The charity Twins Trust, which supported the study, said the new approach could make a real difference.<\/p>\n
“Any procedure that is non-invasive and can potentially identify TTTS earlier and improve outcomes for our families with this life-threatening condition could be a turning point,” said Helen Peck, head of healthcare engagement and research.<\/p>\n
Weeks after Brioney’s scan, it was clear the procedure had worked – the blood flow to the babies had been rebalanced, although there were other issues during the course of her pregnancy.<\/p>\n
Scans showed Margo, who did not have enough fluid around her, “was in a much better position”, Brioney said, and “the strain on Nancy’s heart had eased”.<\/p>\n
The twins were born at nearly 34 weeks – Nancy weighing 3lbs 7 and Margo 3lbs 3 ounces.<\/p>\n
“They were both healthy, and Margo wasn’t as small as we worried she was going to be,” Brioney said.<\/p>\n
In September, they start primary school. “They’re funny, smart, energetic little girls that just fit right in with their age group,” Brioney said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pioneering procedure using high-powered sound waves has the potential to treat identical twins affected by a serious…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[324053,13200,324052,97,107577,324057,11282,324056,324055,324054],"class_list":["post-756420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-blood-flow","tag-blood-vessels","tag-brioney-garrett","tag-health","tag-identical-twins","tag-margo","tag-pregnancy","tag-the-procedure","tag-ttts","tag-twin-babies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}