A Shropshire teenager is today preparing to defy a doctor’s advice and become Britain’s youngest ever mother to conjoined twins.

Laura Williams, 18, and 28-year-old husband Aled, of Shrewsbury, said despite the risks they decided not to abort their daughters – who they have named Faith and Hope.

The twins are due to be delivered by Caesarean section this week. Laura is currently being cared for at Birmingham Women’s Hospital.

See our News Blog – Laura’s decision over twins so brave

The girls are joined from the breastbone to the top of the navel and have separate hearts. They will undergo an operation to be separated in London.

Mr and Mrs Williams, who already have an 18-month old daughter called Carly, first learned of their babies’ condition when Laura went for a scan 12 weeks into the pregnancy.

The doctor told the couple they were having twins but that there was also “bad news”.

Mr Williams, who worked as a binman in the county town, said: “Laura burst into tears and I felt as if someone punched me in the face and stabbed me in the heart at the same time.”

The couple say they were urged by a doctor at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital to seek an abortion.

Mrs Williams said: “He said I’d be better to get rid of them, that I would probably lose them by 14 weeks and if they lasted any longer it could cause all sorts of complications and I could end up having to have a hysterectomy.”

Mr Williams said: “Because every case is so different, they don’t like to give you odds on what might happen, but they have said that because of where they’re joined, there’s more chance of them surviving than not surviving.

“If the join is just the stomach, there’s a good chance of success.”

The couple met just over two years ago and married in Shrewsbury Resgistry Office in September.

Mrs Williams said: “Sometimes I think about the worst so I’m prepared for it. But if it works out well, then I’ll just be really happy.

“If they’re meant to be in this world and if they’ve come this far, we’ve got to hope they’ll make it the rest of the way.”

See our News Blog – Laura’s decision over twins so brave

By Rhea Parsons