It is hard to believe it, yet it is true: in Kazakhstan, Liliya Konovalova (aged 29) gave birth to twins … almost 3 months apart! The young woman is today the happy mother of Liya, a little girl born on May 24, 2019, and of Maxim, a little boy born on August 9, 2019. The news was announced on Facebook this Friday August 16, 2019 by the Ministry of Health of Kazakhstan.
How is it possible ? First thing to know: little Liya was born prematurely after just 25 weeks of pregnancy – at birth she weighed only 850 grams. In France, it is estimated that, when childbirth occurs before 28 weeks of pregnancy (ie before 6 months of pregnancy), it is a “very great prematurity” and this only concerns 5% of births each year in the hexagon. His brother Maxim, meanwhile, was born shortly after term and weighed 2.9 kilograms at birth.
A double uterus for a double birth … extremely rare
Second thing to know: Liliya Konovalova actually has … two wombs. This congenital malformation (which develops during pregnancy, during the 7th week of female fetal development) is called “the didelphic uterus” or “the bicornuate uterus” and affects between 0.1% and 0.5 % of women in the United States. Extremely rare!
In the case of a didelphic uterus, it is possible to observe the development of two babies (each in their womb) but the risk of complications is high: prematurity, miscarriage …
According to the Kazakhstan Ministry of Health, the chances of the two children being healthy after such a hectic childbirth were only … 1 in 50 million. However, 3 months after Liya’s birth and 1 month after Maxim’s birth, the two children are doing well and are getting ready to go home with their mother. “What the doctors did was a miracle,” says the latter. Without a doubt !
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