Twins' birth mum wants daughters to stay

The birth mother of twins Krishna and Trishna who gave them up due to poverty says she wants them to remain in Australia to be educated.

The two-year-old conjoined Bangladeshi twins were separated by a 16-member surgical team during marathon surgery at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital this week.

Lavlee Mollik, 22, handed over her girls to an orphanage in Dhaka one month after birth because she and husband Kartik, 35, were unable to care for them, News Ltd newspapers reported on Saturday.

Mrs Mollik, speaking through a translator by telephone from Bangladesh, said she was praying for her daughters' safe recovery.

She was tracked down by Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Shamokal.

But the couple are unable to care for them and Mrs Mollik wants them to live and be educated in Australia.

"We don't want them back because we don't have the ability to take proper care of them," Mrs Mollik said.

Expressing joy at the sight of the twin on television, Mrs Mollik said she dreamed they might call her their mother in the future.

"I became very happy to see that because they are part of my body, they are part of me," she said.

"That's why I feel very happy to see that.

"I want them to live in Australia and be educated in Australia. And one day when they have become very respected people I want them to call me mother."

Mrs Mollik is a student and is completing final exams at the Keshobpur Agricultural College in Jessore, while Kartik is a factory worker in Khulna.

She says she would like to visit the girls one day.

"It will be the most happy day of my life if I can see them again."

Krishna and Trishna are both recovering from the surgery, with Krishna gradually waking from sedation and Trishna already awake and talking.

Their legal guardian in Australia, Children First Foundation's Moira Kelly, is said to consider herself the twins' mother but has not yet expressed any intention to adopt them.