A Bangladeshi mother has given birth to a healthy set of twins nearly a month after she delivered a premature baby boy.
Arifa Sultana, 20, gave birth to the boy late February through a “normal” delivery, but 26 days later, she was back in hospital suffering from pains in her abdomen. That’s because she was still pregnant — in her second uterus.
“She didn’t realize she was still pregnant with the twins,” Dr Sheila Poddar, a gynecologist who treated the woman, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “Her waters broke again 26 days after the first baby was born and she rushed to us.”
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Speaking with the BBC, the doctor said the twins were delivered via emergency caesarean section at a different hospital from where the woman gave birth nearly a month prior.
“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.”
The chief government doctor in a district in southwest Bangladesh (where the mother was from) told AFP he was stunned the first hospital didn’t notice the second uterus.
“I haven’t seen any case like this in my 30-year-plus medical career,” Dr. Dilip Roy told the news service.
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A double uterus, known as uterus didelphys, is a rare congenital abnormality.
“It is not very common to have two uteruses. When the uterus develops, it comes from two tubes, and those tubes fuse together,” Dr. S.N. Basu, head of obstetrics and gynecology at Max Healthcare hospital in New Delhi, explained to CNN. “For some women, the fusion does not occur, and the dividing wall does not dissolve.”
According to AFP, the new mother is doing fine with her three healthy babies. As for the new father?
“I will try my best to keep them happy,” the man said.
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