Woman Gives Birth Twice, 26 Days Apart

Twenty-year-old Arifa Sultana of Bangladesh recently gave birth twice within one month. How is this possible?

Sultana has a condition called uterus didelphys. It is a rare congenital abnormality in which a woman has two separate uteri.

In a female fetus, the uterus starts out as two small tubes. Normally, as the fetus develops, the tubes come together to form the uterus. Sometimes, they don’t join completely, and each one develops into a separate structure. This is what happened with Sultana.

Many women with this condition have normal pregnancies and deliveries, but some have complications, including infertility, miscarriages, premature births, and kidney abnormalities.

Sultana gave birth to a baby boy in late February. He was a premature birth. Only twenty-six days later, Sultana was rushed to the hospital after complaining of severe stomach pain. It was then that Sultana was given an ultrasound, and it was discovered that she had two more babies inside of her. She gave birth to a set of twins, one boy and one girl, through a C-section.

The first baby and the twins were conceived a month apart and developed in two separate wombs. Sultana hadn’t had an ultrasound before her first delivery, so she wasn’t aware of her condition.

“When the patient came in, we performed an ultrasound on her and found there were twin babies. She had no idea that she had two other babies,” Dr. Sheila Podder, the doctor who delivered the babies, said.

All three babies are happy and healthy.