No, that isn’t a typo…and no, she’s not having twins. When doctors examined Julia Grovenburg’s growing baby girl Jillian, they also discovered another, smaller baby – Jillian’s younger brother – growing right next to her!
Todd and Julia Grovenburg may have conceived their son, Hudson, about two-and-a-half weeks after Jillian.
Make no mistake, these are not twins. The Grovenburg babies will have separate due dates. This is an extremely rare medical occurrence.
“When the woman had her ultrasound initially, they saw one sack, one baby developing, and that baby had a certain gestational age; then they noticed a second heartbeat in a child that was much, much younger developmentally,” Dr. Karen Boyle of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center said.
“It does really sound like this is a true case of different conception times for these children,” said Boyle.
The official name for this occurrence is superfetation, or conceiving while pregnant. In fact, Boyle says, “There is no prevalence or incidence in the literature. I could only find about 10 reported cases.”
Depending on the amount of time between births, Boyle says superfetation could be dangerous for the younger baby, who could be born prematurely.
“It [the second conception] can happen up to 24 days later than the first conception, and then you’re putting the second baby at risk for lung development problems,” said Boyle.
However, with regard to the Grovenburg’s, Boyle says that a difference of two weeks wouldn’t put Hudson at too much risk for health problems.
“The interesting thing in this case is if these children were actually born on their due dates, the older child would be born at the end of 2009, and the younger child would be born in the beginning of 2010,” said Boyle.
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