Woman pregnant twice in 2 weeks

She is 21-weeks pregnant after being raped by her step-grandfather, who is awaiting trial.

What you need to know:

  • American, 31, and husband shocked at the revelation by her doctors

A woman who has managed the rare feat of getting pregnant again after she was already pregnant has caught the attention of medical doctors across the world.

Julia Grovenburg, 31, of Arkansas in the US is now carrying a double pregnancy in her tummy but conceived on different dates and, if all goes well, will be delivered about two weeks apart.

If the children are born on due date, the first a girl, will be born by the end of this year with the younger brother stepping into the world early next year.

In a report appearing first in the Daily Telegraph last week and thereafter picked up by other media outlets, Ms Grovenburg and her husband Todd were shocked after visiting their doctor who on examining her said she was pregnant again.

After an ultrasound scan, the doctors told her that there was another male foetus present in the woman’s womb. The male foetus, her medical team had told her, had been conceived two and half weeks after she conceived the first one.

Although an extremely rare occurrence, the phenomenon called superfoetation, when a woman conceives for a second time while already pregnant, is not entirely unknown.

According to medical literature superfoetation is very rare in human beings.

It occurs if the menstrual cycle continues even after the pregnancy.

However, it is recorded as being common in rats, mice, and sheep.

Her attending doctor, Karen Boyle is quoted telling the ABC- News Good Morning America Health, that she could only find 10 such cases of pregnancy in literature.

She also said that Grovenburg’s case cannot be declared a truly superfoetation since it has to be confirmed only after the birth of the infants and their examination

Grovenburg’s attending team say this should not be a cause for concern because most likely the children will be delivered safely — may be the boy a bit premature. Because the age difference is only two weeks, the boy will be almost at full term when the mother goes in labour for the first baby.

The family may further be emboldened by reports of the last known case of superfoetation where a British woman in 2007 gave birth to boy and a girl who were conceived three weeks apart, with no complications.

The only superfoetation recorded case in Africa was of a 27 woman in rural Nigeria in March 1967.

According to the case reported in the Canadian Medical Journal, the woman had delivered a still born after prolonged labour.

A few weeks later the woman was back in hospital because she had developed problems with bladder control and was consequently operated on. A few days later she started complaining of lower abdominal pain and went into labour

According to the reporting physician, Dr Roy V. WAIR the woman, for the second time in a month, delivered a living, normal full term male foetus.
“The foetus gasped a few times and then died,”

This, says Dr Wair, appears to be an example of superfoetation where ovulation continues even after pregnancy.