Woman Gets Pregnant while Already Pregnant, Gives Birth to Rare Twins in UK

Wiltshire, England: Rebecca Roberts, her husband was struggling with infertility for more than a year, and when they got a positive result at home, they were overjoyed. Later when the couple saw their baby on a sonogram screen and listened to the calming cadence of a steady heartbeat.

On Roberts’s medical chart, her obstetrician wrote: singleton.

Their excitement turns to shock five weeks later the sonographer spotted something astonishing, Rebecca was suddenly carrying two babies – one of which was considerably less-developed than the other.

But this was not a typical set of twins, Rebecca learned. Her pregnancy was diagnosed as superfetation, a rare condition in which a woman who is already pregnant conceives another baby.

According to her obstetrician, David Walker, Roberts’s pregnancy is one of few superfetation cases recorded in medical literature.

“We were concerned because the second twin was much smaller. It was only by regularly scanning and seeing that the rate of growth was consistently three weeks behind that we realized it was superfetation,” David Walker explained.

Given the rarity of the condition, coupled with Roberts’s age and the common risks associated with carrying twins, the pregnancy brought some challenges, particularly during the third trimester. The couple were told that the younger baby might not survive.

Although Roberts’s children had different due dates, she had a Caesarean section and gave birth to both babies on Sept. 17. Noah came first, weighing 4 pounds, 10 ounces. Two minutes later, his younger sister, Rosalie, arrived, weighing 2 pounds, 7 ounces.

Both babies were whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit. Noah remained in the hospital for just over three weeks, while Rosalie stayed for 95 days.

Taking care of twins, who are now almost 6 months old, has been a whirlwind, especially during the pandemic lockdown and while working from home. But Roberts said it has made her heart full to watch the babies grow and develop over the past few months.

Rosalie is much smaller and less advanced than her brother, “but she’s catching up to him fast, regardless of their developmental differences, the twin bond is unmistakable, the couple said.

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