NI's first identical incubator twins celebrate turning 70

If Christine Jordan and Susan Belfitt had been born a year earlier, they would not have survived.

They are twin sisters, and have just celebrated their 70th birthdays.

They are also Northern Ireland's first identical twins who survived thanks to an incubator.

Susan was born first, weighting 2lbs and 4oz. Christine was 2lb 2oz. Tiny, even by today's standards.

Twins born so small before 1954 simply would not have survived.

Christine explained: "Incubators had only recently been introduced at the Royal Victoria Hospital. We've been speaking to our aunt who is 96 she was able to tell us all the details.

"The one thing we don't know is if we were in the incubator together. Nowadays they put twins together, but we don't know what happened then because there are no records dating back that far."

Incubator technology has come a long way but in 1954 they were solely about providing large quantities of oxygen for tiny, underdeveloped lungs. They were also used to keep babies warm and clean.

Babies born very early can have such sensitive eyes and eardrums that normal light and sound can cause permanent damage.

An incubator is designed to provide a safe, controlled space for infants to live while their vital organs are still developing.

There were no scans in 1954, so Christine and Susan's mother did not even know she was having twins until they arrived.

Susan said: "The doctor examined her and a junior nurse said I think there are twins in there and the doctor said: 'No I think it's just the way the baby is lying.'

"There were no phones in people's homes in those days and our father was told to get up to the hospital by a neighbour of my granny's and when he arrived and saw it was twins he fainted."

Women also did not stay with their babies and each day their mother would visit the hospital to feed them, something that continued for months until they were strong enough to come home.

They went to King's Park Primary School and then to Graymount School in Belfast.

There was only one other set of twins in the school and in every school photograph Susan and Christine were at one end of the picture and the other girls were at the opposite end.

Susan and Christine did the same job teaching, in the same college. And they live a mile apart: "So much has mirrored in our lives. We speak to each other two or three times every day."

They also have twin telepathy.

"When I was having my first baby I was in England and my sister was living here," Christine said. "Susan had to go home from work because she was feeling unwell with stomach pains.

"No one knew I was having the baby because I was brought in and I told my husband not to say.

"And she was at home in agony with stomach pains.

"If we are at home we know something is wrong, we have that telepathy, we feel it."