A shocking and a rare incident has recently caught attention of netizens on social media. A woman with a rare heart-shaped uterus has given birth to “one-in-500 million” pair of twins.
The 25 year old woman identified as Karen Troy is from Northborough, Massachusetts, US.
Like every couple both Karen and her husband were excited to be parents when they found out they were going to become parents in January 2021.
Although the woman gave birth in September 2021, the rare case has garnered attention on social media now .
However, earlier apart from excitement they were also shocked when the doctors told them that Karen was pregnant with twins and had an unusual heart-shaped uterus, called bicornuate uterus, in March 2021.
This kind of situation is known as extremely rare as only four in 1,000 woman have a heart-shaped uterus and the chance of becoming pregnant with twins with a heart-shaped womb is rarely one in 500 million.
During her first pregnancy ,Karen was unaware about her uterus’ shape as it’s not always evident in scans.
Karen was quoted as saying to Mirror “I was more worried about the fact I was having two babies than having a heart-shaped uterus. I just wanted to make sure they were OK.”
Initially she didn’t believe that she had a heart-shaped uterus and so she made another scan to make sure it was true. Since it was a high-risk journey, she was also monitored closely .
But Karen had a smooth pregnancy up until 34 weeks. She also developed a pre-eclampsia, a condition that causes high blood pressure.
Finally on September 5, 2021 , Babies Ryan and Raelynn were born and had to spend 27 days at the NICU after which they were allowed to go home.
Karen said “The first 24 hours were really hard for me. I had to stay in a machine to stop any seizures from the pre-eclampsia. The twins had to stay in the NICU to learn to feed and stabilise their breathing,”
She added, “Ryan’s heart rate kept going up and down.”
Now the specially born twins are 16 months old now. They have some delays in their motor skills but are thriving.
