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Maria de Jesus (right) plays with the feeding tube of her sister, Maria Teresa, last week in the UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital. Although both girls eat solid food, Maria Teresa has been unable to consume a healthy amount of calories. Doctors expect the

Formerly conjoined twins Maria de Jesus and Maria Teresa had their expected trip home delayed because of “wound-care issues,” according to hospital officials.

The girls were expected to fly home to Guatemala this week, but doctors at Mattel Children’s Hospital are keeping Maria de Jesus hospitalized to allow more time to recover from surgery to clean and close her scalp incisions.

The decision to keep Maria de Jesus hospitalized was made by lead plastic surgeon Henry Kawamoto.

“Due to wound healing issues, Maria de Jesus must remain at the hospital,” said UCLA spokeswoman Roxanne Moster.

When the girls are ready to go back home, a UCLA medical team, including doctors, three nurses, a physical/occupational therapist and a representative from the hospital, will accompany the twins and their parents on the five-hour flight from Burbank to Guatemala City.

The girls cannot not fly home on a commercial flight, since they will require medical attention should anything unexpected happen, according to Cris Embleton, director of the local chapter of Healing the Children, the nonprofit group responsible for bringing the twins to UCLA.

Instead, FedEx will provide a corporate jet, arranged by Embleton’s son, who works for the company.

She is also in the process of trying to arrange a bus to bring the rest of the girls’ family from their village in Guatemala to greet the girls at the airport in Guatemala City.

From the airport, the girls will go directly to a hospital in Guatemala City, where the UCLA medical team will prepare the staff there for the twins’ special needs before returning on Friday. The parents will spend a day or two with their daughters before returning to their village.

Both of the 15-month-old girls, whose motor skills resemble those of 9- or 10-month-olds, have made significant headway since their separation surgery in August.

Maria Teresa was recovering more slowly than her sister because of post-separation complications. Maria Teresa had blood clots forming on her brain that had to be surgically removed.

Both of the girls are eating solid foods and enjoy riding in the hospital’s child-sized red wagons.

Maria de Jesus gives “high fives,” blows air kisses, and can push herself up while resting on her stomach, but has not yet begun to crawl.

Her neck remains at an angle because of the way she and her sister were joined, but physical therapists are working with her to correct the problem.

Though the girls do not currently have a normal set of hair and are missing bone where they were joined at the head, they will undergo more surgery in a few years to correct that, according to Kawamoto.

“When everything is healed, you won’t know they had any sort of operation,” he said.

Once they return home, the next step is to gradually stretch the twins’ scalps so that the girls can grow a full head of hair, he said.

The girls, who were joined at the head, underwent a 23-hour separation surgery at UCLA on Aug. 6.

UCLA accepted the twins’ case for humanitarian and research purposes and has taken on the $1.5 million cost for the surgery and hospitalization of the twins.

Since their arrival on June 7, the twins have attracted national and international media attention. Their parents, Alba Leticia Alvarez and Wenceslao Quiej Lopez, have remained out of the media spotlight, choosing instead to focus on their daughters.

“They are so relieved that the worst is behind them, and now they can go home and be a family,” Embleton said.

While those involved in the twins’ case are also relieved to see the girls will soon return home healthy and happy, they have formed close bonds with the girls, who have developed distinctly individual and dynamic personalities.

“It is hard to say goodbye, but we look forward to hearing future news about two communions, two educations, two boyfriends and two weddings,” said Dr. Jorge Lazareff, head neurosurgeon on the twins’ medical team, in a statement.

Embleton remains grateful for all the work Kawamoto, Lazareff, and the entire team have devoted to the twins’ care.

“What they have given these two little girls is a future,” said Embleton, who plans on visiting the twins regularly, starting this February.

“Their lives would have been so bleak without this surgery, and now they have the possibility of having a normal life,” she added.

With reports from The Associated Press.