Parenthood

Two Uteruses, Two Babies, One Woman

A woman with two uteruses gives birth to twins - one from each womb.

In the rare case that a woman has two uteruses, she tends to have problems with infertility.  Andrea Barbosa, on the other hand, ended up with twins.  One from each side.

From the St. Petersburg Times:

“It was definitely a shocker,” said the 24-year-old Clearwater mother, who learned about her unusual double pregnancy during an ultrasound at seven weeks. “I was frightened and scared — a little bit of everything in one.”

Make that two, and then some. Her obstetrician, Dr. Patricia St. John, placed the odds of such a pregnancy at 1 in 5 million, explaining that a woman would have to release two eggs at once and both would have to be fertilized and implanted successfully in separate uteruses. Then both had to develop into viable pregnancies.

The biology is routine: Egg plus sperm equals baby. Like other women who conceive nonidentical twins, Barbosa could have released multiple eggs from both of her ovaries, or from just one, her physician explained.

But in Barbosa’s case, the fallopian tubes connect to separate uteruses, each with its own cervix.

Only about 1 in 2,000 women worldwide experience this rare condition, St. John said.

Now if only she had four hands for diapering them all at once.