A DNA test inadvertently revealed an extremely rare occurrence. A woman gave birth to twins that were fertilized by two completely different fathers. How is that even possible?
Paternal DNA test leads to shocking discovery
A 19-year-old from the town of Mineiros in Portugal, who wishes not to be named, recently gave birth to twin boys, Unilad reported.
The teenager was unsure of who fathered the two children. She asked a man she presumed to be the father to submit to a DNA test. The man complied. But when the results came back, everyone was shocked.
The medical professionals realized they were looking at an extremely rare pregnancy situation.
The man presumed to be the father came back positive, but for only one of the twins.
If the DNA results were correct, it could only mean that each twin was fathered by a different man.
The father of the other twin was as yet undetermined.
Woman discovers her twins have two different fathers
The medical professionals were baffled as to whether they were dealing with an extremely rare situation or if there was an error in the DNA results.
The 19-year-old mother remembered that she’d had sex with two different men on the same day. One of those men was the one now confirmed as fathering one of the twins.
Next, the teenager contacted the other man she had sex with on the same day and asked him to take a DNA test.
When the test came back, it concluded there had been no testing error with the first man. This additional DNA test confirmed this second man was the father of the other twin.
There was no question about it, the twins may have been born at the same time, but the two eggs had been fertilized by two separate men.
However, despite the babies having different fathers, only one of the men will be registered on the birth certificate.
“He takes care of both of them,” the young mother said. “[He] helps me a lot and gives them all the necessary support that they need.”
Doctor explains how twins from different fathers could happen
According to medical professionals, this fathering of twins by two different men – known as heteroparental superfecundation – is believed to be the 20th case ever recorded in the world.
“It is possible to happen when two eggs from the same mother are fertilized by different men,” said Dr. Tulio Jorge Franco, an expert in the field, during an interview with globo.com. “The babies share the mother’s genetic material, but they grow in different placentas.”
“It’s extremely rare,” Dr. Franco continued. “It happens one in a million. I never imagined that I would see a case like this in my life.”
“The pregnancy was super smooth, without any complications,” Dr. Franco added. “The boys were born healthy and never had health problems.”
