Mom Gives Birth to Twins 26 Days After Delivering Baby Boy, Doctors Discover She Has Second Uterus
In an impoverished, rural region of Bangladesh, the story of a woman who gave birth to twins just one month after delivering a premature baby seems too outrageous to be true.
Arifa Sultana, 20, delivered a premature baby at Khulna Medical College Hospital in Khulna district in late February, BBC News reported.
Sultana went home with her baby, only to return to the hospital 26 days later complaining of severe stomach pain.
Doctors did an ultrasound on Sultana’s womb at Ad-din Hospital in Jessore district and were shocked to discover the woman had a second uterus, with twin babies inside.
Sultana then had an emergency cesarean section and delivered twin babies — one boy and one girl.
Bangladesh woman with two wombs has twins one month after first birth https://t.co/F3genpMJTw
— BBC News (UK) (@BBCNews) March 28, 2019
Sultana and her doctors did not previously know she had a second uterus.
Dr. Sheila Poddar, the gynecologist who performed Sultana’s Cesarean section around March 21, told BBC News about the experience:
Woman with two wombs gives birth twice: Bangladesh woman with uterus didelphys gives birth to twins, less than a month after first birth https://t.co/iDgS0wxdiy
— Gander the Social Media News Network (@Social_Media_ax) March 29, 2019
“When the patient came in we performed an ultrasound on her and found there were twin babies,” Poddar said.
“We were very shocked and surprised. I have never observed something like this before.”
“She had no idea that she had two other babies,” Poddar said. “We carried out a Cesarean and she delivered twins, one male and female.”
Poddar explained that the family is very poor and the mother had not previously had an ultrasound, which would have detected her second uterus.
After several days in the hospital, Sultana and her twins were discharged.
“The babies and her are all healthy. I am very, very happy that everything went well,” Poddar said.
Sultana had a rare uterine malformation called uterus didelphys, which means she has a double uterus. In her case, Sultana had two separate pregnancies happening at the same time, which would have been detected if she had access to proper prenatal care.
“If you go for a scan beforehand it would be very obvious to see two sets of uteruses,” Dr. Christopher Ng of the GynaeMD Clinic in Singapore told BBC News.
“But obviously they are from a more rural area (and might not have access to ultrasound scanning).”
“(It’s likely that) three eggs ovulated and were fertilized at the same time during her fertile period which resulted in three embryos,” Ng explained.
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