Can a Pregant Woman Get Pregnant Again
Woman Gets Meaning While Already Pregnant: Rare 'Twin' Case Explained
A California woman became pregnant while she was already pregnant, in an extremely rare case that resulted in her carrying "twins" with two different sets of parents.
The 31-year-sometime woman, Jessica Allen, agreed to be a gestational surrogate for a Chinese couple that she met through a surrogacy agency in southern California, according to the New York Post. In April 2016, doctors used in vitro fertilization to produce an embryo for the Chinese couple, and implanted that embryo in Allen's uterus.
Allen shortly became pregnant with the other couple's baby, only at 6 weeks of pregnancy, she was told she was conveying twins. Allen "was very surprised" to learn she was carrying 2 babies, she told ABC News. She believed the Chinese couple's embryo had split in two, making the twins identical, she said.
A calendar month later she had given nascence to the two babies, she learned that the "twins" were non identical. They looked different, and a DNA test confirmed that one infant was Allen's biological child and the other baby was the Chinese couple'southward child.
"Information technology turned out that, in an extremely rare medical incident chosen superfetation, we had gotten pregnant naturally" after the IVF procedure, Allen told the New York Post. [ix Uncommon Conditions That Pregnancy May Bring]
Superfetation means that a woman becomes meaning while she is already significant. It's extremely rare — fewer than a dozen cases of superfetation have been reported in the medical literature, said Dr. Saima Aftab, medical managing director of the Fetal Care Center at Nicklaus Children's Infirmary, who was not involved in Allen'southward case.
Usually, when a woman becomes significant, several biological processes boot in that forestall her from getting pregnant a 2d time during the pregnancy: Her trunk releases hormones that halt ovulation (the release of an egg from the ovaries); a "mucus plug" develops in the neck, which prevents sperm from traveling to the uterus; and the lining of the uterus changes, making it difficult for some other embryo to implant, Aftab said.
Merely with superfetation, a adult female continues to ovulate after she becomes significant, and her ovaries release some other egg that is then fertilized, resulting in a second pregnancy. It's important to notation that, with superfetation, the ii fetuses are unlike gestational ages, typically only a few weeks autonomously, Aftab said. This is different from congenial twins, in which 2 eggs are fertilized at the same time, and the fetuses are the same gestational age.
Aftab said it's possible that superfetation happens more often than is reported; the condition may go undetected because the two fetuses are so shut in age that they are but considered twins. It's only when doctors tin can detect clear differences in the maturity of the fetuses — or when, as in Allen's case, the babies accept different parents (or a different father) — that these cases are easier to detect, Aftab said.
Allen said she was "floored" when she learned i of the babies was hers. "I carried my own child. I didn't know he was mine," Allen told ABC News.
Allen said she underwent a complicated legal battle to get custody of her son, who was not legally her child when he was built-in. In February, Allen and her married man, Wardell Jasper, got custody of their son, whom they named Malachi.
Considering superfetation is so rare, information technology'due south difficult to know whether IVF procedures, or surrogacy, can influence the likelihood of the condition, Aftab said. But these could be questions for futurity enquiry.
In the meantime, this case should exist a "reason for pause and thoughtfulness" among physicians and surrogacy organizations, Aftab said. In future surrogacy cases in which a twin pregnancy occurs unexpectedly, it would be in the interest of all parties to rule out superfetation as presently as possible, she said.
Original commodity on Live Scientific discipline.
Rachael has been with Live Science since 2010. She has a primary'due south degree in journalism from New York University's Science, Wellness and Environmental Reporting Programme. She also holds a B.S. in molecular biological science and an M.Southward. in biology from the University of California, San Diego. Her work has appeared in Scienceline, The Washington Post and Scientific American.
Source: https://www.livescience.com/60820-woman-gets-pregnant-while-pregnant-superfetation.html
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