Salt Lake City ? Conjoined twins separated during a 26-hour surgery were breathing on their own Saturday, a milestone just days after the operation.

Kendra and Maliyah Herrin, 4, were removed from ventilators about 3:45 p.m., said Primary Children’s Medical Center spokeswoman Laura Winder, who called it “wonderful progress.”

“It’s a little sooner than perhaps we expected, but (doctors) said all along we would listen to how they were responding and follow their lead,” she said.

Doctors also reported no evidence of post-surgery infections, Winder said.

The twins, who were born joined at the mid-torso, remain in critical but stable condition. They were separated during surgery that ended Tuesday.

Their father, Jake Herrin, said Maliyah’s ventilator was removed about 10 minutes before Kendra’s “but we’ll call it a tie.”

“They are doing great,” he said on the family’s Web site. “They have woken up but are still really drugged, so they really don’t know what’s going on.”

On Friday, it seemed Kendra might be the first to come off the ventilator. But, as with each step in their recovery, when one twin shows improvement or change, the other seems to keep pace.