A woman with two wombs has given birth to twins almost one month after delivering a premature boy.
20-year-old Arifa Sultana, from Bangladesh, gave birth to her first child in February, but returned to hospital 26 days later, on March 21, complaining of stomach pain.
Doctors at the Ad-din Hospital in the Jessore district discovered Sultana had a second uterus and was pregnant with twins, performing an emergency caesarean.
Delivering healthy twins, Sultana and her family were discharged with no complications.
Dr Sheila Poddar, the gynaecologist who performed the caesarean, told BBC News she was ‘shocked’ when she discovered the two heartbeats.
Dr Poddar said:
When the patient came in we performed an ultrasound on her and found there were twin babies. We were very shocked and surprised. I have never observed something like this before.
She had no idea that she had two other babies. We carried out a caesarean and she delivered twins, one male and female.
The babies and her are all healthy. I am very, very happy that everything went well.
Coming from a poor village, Sultana had never had an ultrasound before, not even in the run-up to the first delivery.
That meant Sultana had no idea she had two wombs, being born with a condition called uterus didelphys, which is estimated to affect one in every 3,000 women worldwide
Usually women with uterus didelphys are born with two uteruses, two cervixes and one vagina.
Last year UNILAD spoke to Maddie Schueller, 21, from Wisconsin, who was born with two vaginas.
Maddie’s vagina was split by a septum, which created two sides to the vaginal canal and as she explained exclusively to UNILAD, two openings too, one on the right which is much bigger and one on the left.
You can watch our full interview with Maddie here:
The condition normally occurs without showing any symptoms, meaning Maddie only discovered she had it during a routine ultrasound.
She explained:
When I was 12 or 13, I had my first period. I kind of realised a septum was there as I couldn’t use tampons as I would still bleed.
Fast forward to a couple of years ago I started to get a lot of cysts on my ovaries which would often send me to the emergency room.
I would have ultrasounds done and one time they were like: ‘Do you know you have two uteruses?’ and I was like: ‘No, I didn’t know that’.
Maddie was shocked at first when she was given the news, and due to the little research which has been done into the condition, felt she had been ‘left in the dark’.
She took the decision to have surgery to remove the septum last year, which now means if she does get pregnant she will be able to plan for a natural birth rather than a caesarean.
If you believe you may have the condition or have noticed another warning sign, it is important to see a doctor and seek advice.
If you have a story you want to tell, share it with UNILAD via stories@unilad.co.uk.
