An expecting mother gets the unexpected: Pregnant

Some women appear to be able to ovulate more than once a month. This can result in a condition called superfetation, which means conceiving while already pregnant.

According to NBC's Nancy Snyderman:

Here's how it happens--egg and sperm implant. Of course, that's your first pregnancy. But if you ovulate more than one time a month--and women do--and a sperm happens to meet that egg, and they, too, implant, guess what? You get a second fetus.

This is precisely what doctors think happened to Arkansas couple Todd and Julia Grovenburg. An ultrasound revealed that a male fetus appears to have formed a full 2.5 weeks after the female fetus was formed, according to Arkansas TV station KFSM-TV.

What technically constitutes "twins" may need to be further defined, as twins are thought to be two children produced in the same pregnancy and born during the same birth process. So if Grovenburg has these two children at the same time, by the traditional definition they would be considered twins. (Fraternal twins, the result of two sperm and two eggs, are not technically created at the same instant, unlike identical, or monozygotic twins, when one egg fertilized by one sperm splits.)

In a report on MSNBC, Dr. Snyderman calls superfetation a rare condition, but writing strictly anecdotally, I wonder if it may happen more than we realize.

My own mother had three sets of twins (I'm the younger sister in the first set; my twin brother is 12 minutes older), though her third set resulted in miscarriage. None of us are identical twins, so it is entirely possible, if unlikely, that my mother was ovulating more than once a month as well (not to mention having sex more than once a month; go Mom!).

In fact, my little sisters were born a full 37 minutes apart, which is a long time for twins. The doctor told my mother that the younger girl, Anne, didn't want to come out, but the doctor insisted it was safer to have one labor, not two.

So who knows? Maybe there are not only more twins than we realize, but also more parallel pregnancies of two kids we assume are twins but who are technically not.

[cm999]

It's not clear to me that such pairs of births are not "technically" twins. They've been together for months .. and are born at the same time .. seems like they fit the definition. I wonder though if it's ever been the case that such twins have had different fathers. THAT might not fit the usual definition of twins.

[AppleProLeo]

Good point how the hell did you think of that one.

Can one imagine the face of the original farther when the second 'Twin' comes out and doesn't look like him, especially if the other 'Twin' is of a completely different race and makes it really obvious. LoL

[stepyourgameup]

What if one came out white and the other came out black? "Lucy, you have some splaning to do"

[Renegade Knight]

All twins. Twins is how they were born. Not how they got there. Science never assigned the twin moniker. Otherwise a lot of twins would wake up one day having been twins all their lifes only to find out they are now multi's becaus some geeks had a vote.

[tech_crazy]

Congratulations on the twins history in your family. However, just because your mother had twins does not mean she ovulated more than once a month. She could very well very have produced 2 eggs at one time, which is most often the case with non-identical twins.

[lightningrob]

I think she knows that. Key word to notice: "unlikely".

[karpenterskids]

Go mom!

[tektaktyks]

i thought that women can ovulate up to 4 months into pregnancy

[Gabey8]

My uncle has a fraternal twin, and it's reasonably certain that they were conceived at two separate ovulations. But I never knew, till now, what the medical term for that was. Very interesting.

[upuaut]

This is akin to 'Dual Core' isn't it?

[Renegade Knight]

Cojoined twins would be dual core.

[blakestar]

Is it just me, or does it seem like most stories like these come out of the southern states.

[GraysonBuzz]

Interesting story, but not sure what it has to do with technology.

[Dr_Zinj]

Litter: the offspring at one birth of a multiparous (having two or more offspring at one birth) mammal.

All it takes is 2. Although it seems more appropriate to use that label for women having 7 in one blow.