Sometimes in the mother's uterus, one twin develops inside the other. What is a parasitic twin? Twin eats the other in the womb

Twins are usually like two drops of water similar to each other. True, in the case of the English Craven brothers, this was not the case. This is because one of them took all the nutrients for himself while they were in the womb.

Helen Craven, 43, wanted children all her life. True, she did not manage to meet a worthy man, so she decided to do IVF using donor sperm. The Englishwoman did not expect that she would be able to get pregnant right away, and even with twin boys!

The pregnancy was easy, but at the twenty-eighth week, the doctors noticed that one of the fetuses had stopped growing. It turns out that his uterine brother began to pull the blanket over himself, that is, he simply began to take all the nutrients.

The doctors shrugged their shoulders in disbelief, claiming that they had never seen such a thing in their practice.

The specialists decided to induce labor in three weeks. As a result, the babies were born two months ahead of schedule, but the doctors simply could not risk the health of a brother deprived of food.

Harrison was born weighing two kilograms, and Finlay - only nine hundred and eighty grams! Neonatologists managed to get the baby out.

Now, at three months old, Harrison looks his age, but Finley looks like a newborn. According to Helen, strangers consider them older and younger brothers. According to medical assurances, Finley's health is not in danger, and he will soon catch up with his twin in size.

33-year-old American Taylor Muhl felt all her life that she should have had a twin sister. Even as a child, she often asked this question to her parents. Mom was always surprised by such perseverance of her daughter. The girl was born alone. Taylor's mother did not give birth to any twin Taylor, neither dead nor alive. Muehl recalls that in her youth she had a mania for twins. She often played twins in the yard with other children.

In the appearance of the girl there is one small but interesting feature. The entire right side of her torso from groin to chest is occupied by pink pigmentation - a birthmark. For a long time she was embarrassed by him. On the beach, the girl specially put on a closed swimsuit. Her health is also slightly different from the rest.

From the age of fifteen, Taylor often feels constant depression and incomprehensible sadness. Taylor had a special diet, she did less in physical education classes. Mule is more likely than other people to experience fever and nausea, and suffers from severe menstrual pain. An allergic reaction may only show up on one side of her body.

In 2009, while watching TV, Taylor accidentally stumbled upon a documentary. And, as Muhl herself says, she almost fell from her chair in surprise. The film told the story of a girl, with exactly the same symptoms she was experiencing. The heroine of the documentary had a rare disease - chimerism, that is, the presence of genetically heterogeneous cells in the body.

Taylor went to the doctor the next day. Analyzes and medical tests confirmed the girl's assumptions. She had two immune systems. There are two types of blood flowing in her veins. It turned out that even in the womb of her mother, Taylor swallowed her twin.

This explains her strange allergies and colds, which she endured twice as hard as ordinary people. At the moment, about a hundred such diagnoses have been officially recorded in world medical practice.

Having learned the answer to the question that tormented her all her life, Mule became more relaxed about her distinctive appearance. Now she is not shy about wearing a separate swimsuit and even starring in fairly candid photo shoots.

A fruit that is entirely in another.
Extra limbs or head protruding beyond the body of a healthy child.
A visually distinguishable vestigial fetus on a "carrier".

In the first case, the second embryo is located either in the abdominal cavity or in the chest of the "carrier". Situations are much less common when the fetus settles in the head of a brother or sister.

How to discover?

In underdeveloped countries, the "fetus in the fetus" may not be diagnosed until the mature age of the "carrier", being hidden among the internal organs. It is detected only with a thorough examination of a patient who complains of poor health and unreasonable weight loss.

Ischiopagus is diagnosed in an adult with the help of the following studies:

Radiography.

In studies with imaging, the degree of development is as follows:

The mechanism that triggers this phenomenon has also not been determined. But experts have identified the following risk factors for expectant mothers:

Work in production, if harmful toxic substances are used in the process.
Taking medication before conception, during the period of ovulation. Women who were treated with potent drugs in the early stages of pregnancy also fall into this category.
Living in adverse environmental conditions, which is why a pregnant woman is constantly exposed to poisons.
The development of mental illness after trauma due to aggressive psychological pressure.

Possible consequences

For the mother, such a fetus is not dangerous. Difficulties arise during childbirth with the external location of additional limbs and other anomalies that have reached large sizes.
For the fetus, this condition is dangerous for several reasons:

The latter causes a violation of the development of the carrier fetus, premature birth and intrauterine death of both embryos.

This anomaly is classified as rare. It is believed that only 1% of pregnancies with more than one fetus end in such consequences. The male embryo is more commonly affected.

Treatment and prognosis

Surgery is the only treatment option if the pathology has not been eliminated during fetal development. But success depends on many factors, such as what organs were shared, how closely the twins grew together, and so on.

Sometimes doctors have to deal with the fact that a previously diagnosed multiple pregnancy turns into a singleton, as one of the embryos disappears from the uterus. Such a manifestation is said to be the phenomenon of the vanishing twin.

What is the vanishing twin phenomenon?

This condition is a natural defense mechanism in which a woman's body does not accept a multiple pregnancy and gets rid of one of the children. In obstetrics and gynecology, this phenomenon is also called spontaneous fetal reduction, which is the disappearance of signs of life, in particular the heartbeat in one of the embryos of previously living twins.

Why does the twin "disappear"?

The main reasons for the disappearing twin are the psychological and physical aspects of the mother's body:

mother's depression and fear of the future (often thoughts about the material side of multiple pregnancy);
the presence of chronic inflammatory diseases of the pelvic organs;
developmental anomalies in one of the embryos, as a result of which natural selection is triggered;
recent pregnancy and childbirth, as a result of which the body has not yet had time to recover;
weak immunity of a woman.

Vanishing twin: signs and symptoms

If the fading of the life of one of the fetuses occurs at 7-8 weeks of gestation, then clinically in most cases this does not manifest itself in any way, the fetal membranes of the frozen fetus dissolve in the membranes of another child, and he continues to develop in the uterus on his own. Sometimes a woman may complain of aching spastic pains in the lower abdomen and smearing from the vagina. In some cases, a woman's slight bleeding may continue until the end of the first trimester, which forces her to see a doctor, where they find out that the pregnancy was multiple and one of the twins "disappeared."

How is a missing twin diagnosed?

Many women, finding themselves in an “interesting” position for the first time, are more likely to rush to an ultrasound scan to make sure they are pregnant and see the baby with their own eyes. Thanks to modern ultrasound machines, the presence of multiple pregnancies can be detected already at the 5th week of pregnancy. During the study, the doctor clearly sees the presence of two fetal eggs in the uterine cavity, at 6-7 weeks the pulsation of the babies' hearts is clearly visible on the monitor screen. A planned ultrasound is mandatory for all pregnant women between 11 and 13 weeks, during which the doctor, as a rule, discovers that one of the twins has "disappeared", and then the pregnancy will develop as a singleton.

Vanishing twin in IVF

During artificial insemination, doctors implant several embryos into the woman's uterus at once, which increases the chances of pregnancy and implantation of at least one of the babies. 2 weeks after transplantation, the woman should appear for a control ultrasound, where the doctor diagnoses the successful attachment of the embryos in the uterus and shows the patient the presence of 2 fetal eggs.

At about 7-8 weeks of pregnancy, a woman may notice the appearance of pulling spastic pains in the lower abdomen and the presence of minor spotting. During the control ultrasound, it is found that only one of the implanted embryos continues to develop in the uterus, which is often due to the natural protection of the mother's body from excessive stress.

Irina Levchenko, obstetrician-gynecologist, specially for the site website

A similar anomaly is usually diagnosed after the surviving twin is born, although there have been several terrible cases when the “internal” twin could not be found until the age of majority or the death of the survivor. Fortunately, the fetus in the fetus is an extremely rare phenomenon and occurs only in one case out of 500 thousand. Sometimes it is possible to diagnose the fetus in the fetus during the mother's pregnancy - then, as a rule, an operation is immediately performed to remove it, and then the second child is born.

In 2008, the medical journal "Observation" published an article about a two-month-old child with an anomaly of the fetus in the fetus - the absorbed twin adhered to the child's right kidney and was a "sack with a clear liquid." It weighed 220 g, and its size was about 10 cm in diameter. The "bag" was completely covered in intact skin and had two malformed lower limbs with four vestigial fingers, as well as lungs, a liver, and a spleen. After the removal of the “brother”, the second baby survived and now leads a completely normal life.

In 2012, another magazine published a story about a four-month-old boy whose twin was encased in a "greyish-white membrane" in his abdomen. During the removal operation, it was discovered that the engulfed twin had developed vertebrae and femurs, tibias, and fibulae. Even earlier, in 1974, a twin was found in the stomach of a six-month-old boy, in which the skull and brain were half formed, but the arms and legs, as well as the phalanges of the fingers, were underdeveloped.

Unlike the first three children, for whom their twin generally did not pose a great danger, in India in 2007 a boy was admitted to the hospital with respiratory failure. During the operation to remove the twin, serious details were revealed: the absorbed twin had a head and torso, skin and small bulges where the limbs should have formed, as well as the rudiments of the central nervous system.

But the worst story about this anomaly is the case of a child born on May 18, 1807. Shortly after birth, a bulge appeared on his abdomen, for the next month he was constantly ill and suffered from frequent vomiting, and his urine was green. By January 1808, he was "a veritable skeleton covered in leather" and continued to lose weight. The tumor on his abdomen grew rapidly until it finally reached 90 cm in diameter. After the boy died, an autopsy showed that a twin was inside him. The doctor described it this way:

“This monster was covered in a sticky substance that is often found on the skin of newly born babies. When it was removed, the creature underneath had bright, healthy skin, like a living baby. Its short and thick limbs were plump and fixed in almost the same position in which the fetus is usually found in the womb. However, above the shoulders, in place of the head, there was a dark red fleshy mass.

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