A young Californian has become pregnant with her second child while she was already expecting her first. On August 10, 2021, she gave birth on the same day to two little girls, who are not twins. This rare phenomenon is called “superfetation”.
- At the start of 2021, an English woman also discovered that she was expecting two happy events. The 30-year-old gave birth to a boy and a girl by Caesarean section.
- Worldwide, ten cases of superfetation have been reported.
In November 2020, Odalis and Antonio Martinez, originally from California (USA), learned that they were going to have a child. The couple was overjoyed, because a few months before, the young woman aged 25 had a miscarriage. But little did the young parents know that the best was yet to come. During the first ultrasound, they discovered that they were expecting not one but two babies. Odalis Martinez indicated, at the DailyMailthat during her pregnancy, she became pregnant a second time, five days after conceiving her first child.
The successive fertilization of two eggs in different ovulation periods
Nine months later, the twenty-something gave birth to two daughters, Lilo and Imelda. They were born on the same day and at the same time, but they are not twins. Their birth is the result of a phenomenon called “superfetation”. This situation occurs when an egg is fertilized and implants in the uterus for the second time just days or weeks after the process first occurred.
Superfetation is an extremely rare phenomenon
According to a study published in 2008 in the journal European Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Reproductive Biology, only ten cases of superfetation have been recorded worldwide. This phenomenon is difficult to diagnose, since the presence of two fetuses in the uterus is usually considered twins.
Yet, although the daughters of Odalis and Antonio Martinez were born at the same time, they are not officially twins. However, they look alike. “Sometimes my husband and I, well more like my husband, confuse them for each other. Usually I can tell them apart, because I’m with them 24/7, but many people confuse them, declared the young mother to the British newspaper.
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