Vanishing Twin Blog

Hong Kong CNN —   A team of Hong Kong doctors has described an extremely rare medical occurrence: what appeared to be a pair of fetuses inside the body of a newborn girl. They were both joined to a placenta-like mass by umbilical cords. Each one had four limbs, skin, a ribcage, intestines and primitive brain tissue, according to a study published this month in the Hong Kong Medical Journal. More https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/10/asia/hong-kong-fetuses-inside-newborn-baby/index.html

A 2-year-old in China is reported to have "given birth" to the undeveloped fetus of his twin. Xiao Feng, of Huaxi, was taken to the hospital after his parents noticed he had a bloated stomach and was having trouble breathing, News.com.au reported Monday. Doctors found that Feng was carrying an undeveloped fetus inside his abdominal cavity, and removed it through emergency surgery, according to Inquisitr's translation of newscast from a China Central Television, a state-run media outlet. More https://www.huffpost.com/entry/xiao-feng-gives-birth-to-own-twin_n_4031101?utm_hp_ref=email_share

Thanks to a rare medical condition, a Washington state woman found out that pregnancy was not enough to prove motherhood; DNA testing indicated that she was, in fact, not the mother of her own children – so who was? During the course of a desperate battle to retain custody of her three children, it was discovered that her twin was the real biological parent. The twist? She, 26-year-old Lydia Fairchild, was her own twin. By the time Fairchild was 23 years old, she had given birth to two children and was pregnant with a third. Her relationship with the father had been rocky. They separated – not for the first time – and she found herself, at 26, a struggling, single mother; out of work and unable to support her kids. When she applied for government assistance, however, her world was shattered by an incredible revelation – one that led to criminal accusations and the impending prospect of losing her children to the state. More https://guardianlv.com/2014/01/pregnancy-no-proof-of-motherhoo

Doctors in Peru said they would operate today on a 3-year-old boy to remove the body of his would-be twin. Isbac Pacunda has the body of his twin inside his stomach - bones, eyes and even hair on the cranium. Dr. Carlos Astocondor, a plastic surgeon at the Las Mercedes Hospital in Chiclayo, told the Associated Press that the partially formed fetus weighs about a pound and a half and is 9  inches long. He and a team of 12 doctors will surgically remove the tissue from the boy's stomach today. The condition is called fetus-in-fetu and happens in about one  out of every 500,000 live births, Astocondor said. Although rare, these cases are not unheard of. In 2008, doctors removed a 2-inch embryo from the body of a 9-year-old girl in Greece. In 2006, doctors found a half-formed twin with limbs, genitalia, hair - even fingernails - in the swollen stomach of a 36-year-old Indian man. The case spotlights the biological precision needed for twins to develop in the womb. Identical twins form

Hong Kong CNN —   A team of Hong Kong doctors has described an extremely rare medical occurrence: what appeared to be a pair of fetuses inside the body of a newborn girl. They were both joined to a placenta-like mass by umbilical cords. Each one had four limbs, skin, a ribcage, intestines and primitive brain tissue, according to a study published this month in the Hong Kong Medical Journal. It was "one of those very rare things that make the world stand still," said Dr. Nicholas Chao, one of the surgeons who operated on the baby. He said he'd never seen anything like it before during his career in pediatric medicine. The unusual condition, known as "fetus-in-fetu," is estimated to happen once in every half-million births but has been reported fewer than 200 times worldwide, according to the study published by Chao and his colleagues. https://www.cnn.com/2015/02/10/asia/hong-kong-fetuses-inside-newborn-baby/index.html

It sounds like something out of Weekly World News, but it's actually straight out of a report in the Hong Kong Medical Journal: A baby girl was found to be carrying two masses which could be partially developed fetuses inside her abdomen. The extremely rare phenomenon is called fetus in fetu (literally "fetus inside fetus"), and doctors are still puzzled by it. http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/02/11/newborn-girl-might-have-been-carrying-her-parasitic-twins/

Taylor Muhl was born with different stomach colors and was told for years it was just a birthmark. After continual health issues, Taylor finally got answers; she had chimerism, which means she absorbed her twin in the womb and has two immune systems and two sets of DNA. In a Medical Mysteries and Miracles report, Taylor describes her journey on Megyn Kelly TODAY. https://www.today.com/video/woman-born-with-unusual-birthmark-discovers-she-is-her-own-twin-1168580163642?cid=eml_onsite

A Kansas family is given the news of twins, only to find out they'll most likely go home with just one newborn. CNN affiliate KWCH reports. Source: KWCH https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2016/02/17/unborn-twins-holding-hands-death-pkg.kwch

A  baby girl  born in  Israel  earlier this month had the embryo of a twin inside her stomach, in what medical officials say was a 1-in-500,000 medical rarity. The case of "fetus-in-fetu" occurred at Assuta Medical Center in Ashod, Israel, according to The Times of Israel. "We were surprised to discover that it was an embryo," Omer Globus, director of neonatology at the hospital, told the newspaper. https://www.foxnews.com/health/baby-girl-born-with-twin-inside-stomach-in-extreme-medical-rarity-report