An Australian mother of two little miracles has shared the story of the phenomenon that resulted in her daughters being conceived 10 days apart.
Kate
and Peter Hill are one of only 11 reported human cases of superfetation
in the world, which brought them their 10-month-old daughters Charlotte
and Olivia.
Superfetation occurs when a woman carries on
ovulating after conceiving, and the second fertilized egg successfully
implants itself in the womb's lining. The Brisbane parents only had sex
once during the period of conception, but Peter's sperm stayed alive for
10 days, meaning the second egg Kate released could be fertilized.
It's
so rare that Kate’s obstetrician Dr. Brad Armstrong, from Greenslopes
Private Hospital in Brisbane, had to Google it to find out more about
it. "I could not find any literature in the medical review websites at
all," he confessed.
Charlotte and Olivia's original due dates were
10 days apart: Dec. 20 and Dec. 30, but both were delivered two days
before the C-section they'd originally planned.
Another case of
superfetation made the news in 2009 when American mother-to-be Julia
Grovenburg went for a routine ultrasound and was told by her doctor that
next to the baby girl she was carrying was a little boy, conceived days after his sister.
Julia
and her husband Todd then had to prepare for the arrival of two babies:
a daughter on Dec. 24 and a son a fortnight later on Jan. 10. Both
babies ended up arriving on the same day: Dec. 2 by C-section.
Despite
being so rare, superfetation shouldn't be a case for concern, according
to Dr. Robert Atlas, chairman of the obstetrics and gynecology
department at Baltimore's Mercy Hospital. Although he has never come
across a case of superfetation during his career, he told Time that superfetation babies should behave much as twins do
(although they're not actually twins because they were conceived at
different times), with the second baby being only slightly premature.
In the animal world superfetation is far more common, with many documented cases in badgers, buffalo, mink and panthers.
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