A Vietnamese woman has caused quite a stir in the world of medicine after she gave birth to twins with different fathers after having sex with two men in the same ovulation period.
The rather unheard phenomenon acme to light recently after the mother and her husband took their two-year-old children for DNA tests because of significant differences in their appearances. However the news they received came as a great shock after they were told that only one of their twins was biologically related to the father.
Although if many of you are thinking it has to be a hospital mix up, you are completely wrong as the DNA results showed that both babies indeed in fact have the same mother.
The news has come as a shock to local doctors as the president of the Genetic Association of Vietnam, Le Dinh Luong, told AFP that the findings were extremely rare.
Dr Luong told reporters: “Our Centre for Genetic Analysis and Technology lab has tested and found a pair of bi-paternal twins,” he said. “This is rare not only for Vietnam, but for the world.” However various other medical experts throughout the world have said Bi-paternal twins can occur if two eggs from the same woman are fertilised by the sperm of two men during the same ovulation period.
They say the time window that eggs can be fertilised is fairly small, with sperm cells capable of living inside a woman’s body for only four to five days. The lifespan of a woman’s egg, meanwhile, is just 12 to 48 hours. The exact circumstances surrounding the Vietnamese couple’s case remain unclear.
Although local media reports suggest the husband was encouraged to take his children for DNA tests by his relatives, who noted that one of the twins did not look at all like him.