Arifa Sultana had no idea she was pregnant with twins! She gave birth to a boy in late February and after a virginal delivery, the mother and baby were released.

Less than four weeks later, she was admitted to Ad-Din hospital in Dhaka.

According to Dr. Sheila Poddar, a gynecologist in Dhaka. “She came to the hospital complaining of lower abdominal pain,”.

Doctors performed an ultrasound and found Sultana was pregnant with twins in a second uterus and immediately performed an emergency cesarean.

“When the patient came in we performed an ultrasound on her and found there were twin babies,” Dr. Poddar said “She had no idea that she had two other babies,”

“We carried out a cesarean and she delivered twins, one male, and female.”

Moreover, her twins were found to be healthy and were discharged with no complications.

 

 

“All three children are safe and healthy. I am very, very happy that everything went well” Dr Poddar said. “The mother is also fine.”

 

Sultana had two uteruses, a condition called uterus didelphys. Her first baby and the twins were conceived and grown in separate wombs.

 

She did not get an ultrasound before the first delivery, so it was missed.

 

According to Dr Poddar, Sultana and her husband are “very poor” and she had “never had an ultrasound before”, in the run up to her first delivery.

 

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The 20-year-old and her newborns were discharged on 25 March after four days in the hospital.

 

“It is not very common to have two uteruses. When the uterus develops, it comes from two tubes, and those tubes fuse together. For some women, the fusion does not occur, and the dividing wall does not dissolve,” said Dr. S.N. Basu, head of obstetrics and gynecology at Max Healthcare hospital in New Delhi.

 

A uterus didelphys is a rare congenital abnormality, and the occurrence of twin gestation has an overall incidence rate of 1 in a million, according to the National Institutes of Health.

 

For it not to be discovered before the birth is even less common.  Often women who have the condition do not have symptoms and it is usually discovered during pregnancy when an ultrasound scan is given.

 

“From rural areas, people don’t know what is wrong with them. They don’t know how many children they are pregnant with and sometimes whether they are pregnant also,” Dr Basu said.

 

“If you go for a scan beforehand it would be very obvious to see two sets of uteruses. But obviously they are from a more rural area [and might not have access to ultrasound scanning],” Dr Christopher Ng of the GynaeMD Clinic told the BBC.

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