A 32-year-old woman from the American state of Alabama who was born with two wombs is pregnant in both at the same time.
Kelsey Hatcher has known since the age of 17 that she has a rare condition which means that she was born with two wombs. This condition occurs in only about 0.3% of women.
This mother of three heard during a routine examination in May that she was pregnant with twins, but that a fetus had developed in each of her wombs.
“What most likely happened is that she ovulated separately and one egg came down each fallopian tube, meaning it came down each side of the uterus, and then sperm cells moved to each separate uterus and fertilization occurred separately ,” Shweta Patel, Hatcher’s gynecologist at Birmingham Women & Infants Center, told ABC Good Morning America said.
Although women with a double uterus often experience pregnancy complications, all three of Hatcher’s children were healthy and were born after a full term pregnancy.
Pregnancies in both uteruses are extremely rare. According to Hatcher, she was told the chance was one in 50 million – with the last widely known case occurring in Bangladesh in 2019 when Arifa Sultana, then 20, gave birth to healthy twins, 26 days apart.
Hatcher hopes to give birth to both girls normally when they arrive by Christmas. However, the uteruses will contract at different times, which can be minutes, hours or even days apart, and Kelsey and her husband, Caleb, are aware that a C-section – for one or both – may be necessary depending on how the process unfolds. .
“They like to tell me at every doctor’s visit: ‘You are aware that we have never had such a situation before; this is a completely new case for us.’ However, I feel like I have the best team for this and I’m at the best hospital in Alabama in my circumstances,” Hatcher said.
