A woman in Bangladesh who doctors discovered to have two wombs had given birth to three babies in a space of one month. The women gave birth to twins almost a month after she had given birth to a premature baby boy.
The woman named Arifa Sultana, aged 20, has earlier given birth to a baby boy in late February, but was later rushed to the hospital just 26 days later after feeling pain in her stomach.
Upon examination, doctors discovered that Arifa Sultana was still pregnant with twins in her second womb and they had to perform an emergency caesarean operation on her to save the babies and the woman. The caesarean operation was successful and the woman and the babies are reported to be healthy and they were discharged without any record of complications.
According to the the gynaecologist who performed the emergency caesarean operation, Dr Sheila Poddar, Ms Sultana, who is from a rural village, delivered her first baby at the Khulna Medical College Hospital in Khulna district. Just 26 days later, she complained of stomach pain and was rushed to the Ad-din Hospital in Jessore district on 21 March, 2019.
According to Dr Sheila Poddar, “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.”
Dr Sheila Poddar added that it is unclear why she might have chosen to go to a different hospital. He stated that Ms Sultana and her husband are “very poor” and she had “never had an ultrasound before”, in the run up to her first delivery.
Dr Poddar futher explained, “She had no idea that she had two other babies. We carried out a caesarean and she delivered twins, one male and female.”
The 20-year-old and her newborns were discharged on 25 March after four days in hospital.
“The babies and her are all healthy. I am very, very happy that everything went well.”
The condition was described by experts as uterus didelphys – the condition of having two uteruses. Experts also added that having two wombs is “not as rare as people think”.
Uterus didelphys is described as a disorder in which a female develops a double uterus instead of one. The uterus starts out as two small tubes in a foetus and these normally join together to form one large organ – but if they don’t a double uterus may be formed. Such abnormalities vary in severity and in some cases can cause fertility problems.