You Know the Saying ‘Everyone Has a Twin’?…
You’ve heard it time and again. Somebody tells you that you look just like so and so, and you eek out the standard reply: “Well, they say everyone has a twin.”
Well, if you’re a seemingly normal 9-year-old girl in central Greece, you not only have a twin, but you carry her (or him) around in your stomach.
Yes, this is true. The girl, who was suffering from stomach pains and a swollen belly, went to the hospital where doctors surgically removed a growth that was found to be the girl’s embryonic twin. A formed fetus, it was two inches long and had a head, hair and eyes - but no brain or umbilical cord.
The girl has since made a full recovery, but the staggering thing is that this phenomenon has happened before. While it certainly isn’t considered common, instances where one of a set of twins absorbs the other in the womb (called fetus in fetu) happens in about one in 500,000 live births.
Once again, I am in awe of the human body and mysterious behavior of Mother Nature. You?
Source: msnbc.com
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POSTED IN: Across the Pond, Boys & Girls, Children, Extreme, Oddities, Weird News
6 opinions for You Know the Saying ‘Everyone Has a Twin’?…
Hope Wilbanks
May 17, 2008 at 2:07 am
Oh.My.Word. Wow.
Angelique
May 17, 2008 at 4:28 am
I’ve heard of this happening before. It’s really a strange occurrence, isn’t it?
I wonder how the girl will feel when she gets older?
Steph
May 17, 2008 at 11:19 pm
We talked about this in my developmental biology class last year. There was actually a woman who gave birth to a child, but when custody issues arose and a maternity test was performed, the mother’s DNA and the child’s DNA didn’t match up. Turns out that the mother had been a dizygotic twin and the two embryos had fused early on in development. As a result of the fusion, the two embryos became one baby with somatic cells from one set of DNA, and reproductive cells from another set of DNA. So when it came time for her to have a baby, the DNA from her ovaries where actually that of her sisters, and she ended up giving birth to her niece. Crazy eh?
Liberty
May 18, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Hope -
Um, yep. That pretty much sums this story up, huh? ;)
Liberty
May 18, 2008 at 7:11 pm
Angelique -
Have you really head of this? Oh my. I had never heard of such a thing. I really can’t imagine what the girl might feel as she gets older. Poor dear.
Liberty
May 18, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Wow, Steph, your story is even more amazing. Can you even imagine? Honestly, the complexities of the human body are really astounding. Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing that story. Totally crazy!!
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