WORLD
Woman conceives another baby while already pregnant, gives birth to both.
A woman from the UK named Rebecca Roberts experienced the extremely unusual phenomenon of getting impregnated while already carrying, leading to the birth of twins conceived three weeks apart but born on the same day.
The incident was caused by a rare case where the body of a pregnant woman fails to perform a number of biological processes meant to stop her from getting pregnant again. One of these processes is the halting of hormone releases, which in turn stops ovulation.
Roberts and her twins born out of superfetation. IMAGE: Good Morning America
In the case of Roberts, however, her body continued to ovulate despite already being pregnant. This led to another ovum getting fertilized during intercourse, causing a rare biological phenomenon known as superfertation.
39-year-old Roberts – who became pregnant in 2020 – conceived her twins three weeks apart. During the 12th week of her gestational period, doctors discovered a second baby with a size difference of about three weeks during an ultrasound exam.
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According to reports, her doctors had a hard time understanding the situation, as a case of superfetation like Roberts’ was so extremely rare – so rare, in fact, that the actual number of times such a thing has occurred is still unknown.
“My initial reaction was how had I missed the second twin,” said David Walker – an OB-GYN at the Royal United Hospital in Bath, UK. “And following this, I was slightly relieved that it was not my mistake but a quite extraordinary pregnancy.”
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Following the diagnosis, Roberts was told of the possibility that her younger baby might not survive. And during the 33rd week of her first pregnancy in September, complications arose – the younger twin had stopped growing due to a complication with her umbilical cord, and Roberts was forced into induced labor.
All is well in the end.
Thankfully for the family, both babies were successfully born, albeit prematurely. The elder baby – a boy named Noah – was born with a weight of just over 1.8 kg, and was placed in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for around three weeks, while the younger twin – a girl named Rosalie – weighed in at only over 0.9 kg at birth. She ended up spending 95 days in the NICU.
Soon after, both twins – much to the delight of Roberts and her partner Rhys Weaver – were declared healthy and were discharged just in time for the Christmas holidays.
