In an unusual case, a South African woman has given birth to twin girls – born a month apart, which is a rare occurrence, according to medical experts.
A few minutes after her daughter was delivered in a natural birth in March, Philasande Mbutuma (30) from Kraaifontein in Cape Town felt something unusual: a movement in her stomach that she couldn’t explain.
“I felt something moving inside me right after giving birth. I immediately told the doctors,” she said, reports Yoliswa Sobuwa writes in Health-e News.
The medical team at Karl Bremer District Hospital did a scan – and to her shock, told her she was still pregnant with a second baby, and that she had to wait for it to grow some more as it was too tiny to deliver.
Mbutuma said that while she had attended regular prenatal check-ups at Kraaifontein Community Health Centre, no one ever said she was expecting twins.
“At the beginning of March I started having labour pains, and my husband took me to the hospital… I was not nervous as this was my second baby,” she said.
There, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl weighing 2.88kg.
Interval
Doctors told her she was experiencing a rare pregnancy known as delayed interval delivery, where one twin remains in the womb after the first is born. This is to give the second baby more time to develop and increase their chances of survival.
Professor Ray Maharaj, head of the obstetrics and gynaecology department at the University of Free State, said interval births have previously been documented globally and in South Africa, but it not known how many cases there have been here. The global statistics are limited too.
He said the process happens when a pregnant woman goes into preterm labour while the other baby is not fully developed. The first baby is delivered normally while the second baby is left inside.
“This may occur spontaneously and be related to a previous history of preterm delivery, weakness of the cervix, or infection. The doctors will then leave the other twin in the uterus to grow and develop further.”
Birth of ‘miracle babies’
Maharaj said the second twin can be left inside the uterus if it is normal and healthy, with no additional complications. The process requires close monitoring of the pregnancy, however.
“The second twin can grow to term, but if complications develop, like infection, distress or other medical conditions, it may be delivered early.”
On 5 April, nearly a month later, Mbutuma started feeling unwell, and went to Kraaifontein Community Health Centre. There, she gave birth to another girl weighing 2.84kg.
A similar case was reported in the Northern Cape earlier this year, when a woman gave birth to twin boys 14 days apart: the first baby was delivered at Kuruman Hospital on 27 March and the second on 10 April at Universitas Academic Hospital in Bloemfontein on 10 April. Unfortunately, the second baby didn’t survive.
Health complications
Maharaj said while the second baby had a lower risk of death in interval pregnancies, especially if the delivery of the first twin occurred during the six months of pregnancy, it might, however, be exposed to risks like chorioamnionitis (infection of the baby’s placenta), preterm delivery, placental abruption (bleeding of the placenta) and death, especially if the pregnancy were not well monitored.
Health-e News article – A Tale Of Twins Born A Month Apart (Creative Commons Licence)
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Woman with double uterus pregnant in both