A Chinese woman, with two uteruses, astonishes everyone by giving birth to one child from each womb. - Photo: SCMP composite/Douyin
SHANGHAI: A woman in northwest China who was born with the rare medical condition of having two uteruses gave birth to twins in September from both wombs.
The woman, surnamed Li, has a condition that affects only 0.3 per cent of women worldwide. Both of her uteruses were fully formed and included ovaries and oviducts, according to China National Radio.
The double ovary condition is very rare, but it is even more uncommon for a woman to successfully give birth.
Li gave birth to a boy and a girl in early September at Xi’an No 4 Hospital in Shaanxi province when she was eight and a half months pregnant.
Cai Ying, a senior obstetrician at the hospital, was quoted as saying: “Being pregnant in each of the two uteruses through natural conception is very rare. We have only heard of a couple of such cases from both China and abroad.”
“It’s even rarer that a woman with this condition would successfully give birth after 37 weeks,” she said, adding that it was a “one in a million” phenomenon.
Typically, women with two uteruses do not experience symptoms until they become pregnant.
During their pregnancies, they are at an increased risk of repeated miscarriages, premature birth, underdevelopment of the fetus, and post-partum haemorrhages.
Li, whose age has not been revealed, had been pregnant before but suffered a miscarriage at 27 weeks due to unidentified factors, the report said.
After Li became pregnant in January, doctors at the Xi’an hospital devised a meticulous plan to ensure her safety.
The babies were born healthy, with the boy weighing 3.3kg and the girl 2.4kg.
The doctors performed a caesarean operation during the birth.
Li and her newborns were discharged from the hospital four days after the babies’ birth.
China state broadcaster CCTV reported that in December last year, a woman in the US state of Alabama gave birth to twin girls from both of her uteruses.
That mother already had three children, but those were single-baby pregnancies that utilised only one of her two uteruses.
The news of Li attracted widespread attention on mainland Chinese social media.
One online observer quipped: “The babies lived a luxurious life inside their mother’s belly. Instead of sharing the same house like other twin fetuses, they lived in separate villas.”
However, another person reminded the public that the pregnancy would have been extremely challenging.
“My colleague has two uteruses. She lost her baby three times before having a son. It was not easy for her!” the individual said. - South China Morning Post
