A 19-year-old woman gave birth to twins, but their biological fathers are different. According to the Daily Mail, the unnamed 19-year-old from Minerios in Goias, Brazil, revealed that she did a paternity test to find out who the father was.
The mother had questions about who the father of her children was, so she did the DNA test using the sample of the man she believed to be the father. She discovered that just one of her children had tested positive for DNA while the other had not. ‘She then remembered that she had sex with a different man on the same day and when this second person took a test, it showed he was the second twin’s father’, says the report.
The scientific process known as heteropaternal superfecundation, in which the second ova produced during the menstrual cycle is fertilised by the sperm cells of a different male in a subsequent sexual encounter, provides an explanation for this unusual possibility. The embryos share the mother’s genetic makeup after fertilisation, but the placentas in which they develop are distinct. Archer first described this occurrence in 1810. ‘Although rare in humans, heteropaternal superfecundation is common in dogs, cats and cows’, a report by The Guardian says.
This explains two possible scenarios: A woman can first discharge two eggs simultaneously. It would be conceivable to have sex with one father-to-be before the egg is released and another right after ovulation because sperm may survive for a few days. In the second case, although being in the same reproductive cycle, the woman produces two eggs a few days apart. Only 20 additional such cases have reportedly been recorded so far.
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