Twins are born two months apart

Maricica Tescu, 33, from Iasi, gave birth to a boy on Monday 59 days after the birth of his non-identical twin brother on December 11.

Romanian doctors said this was a medical first for their country, with only 11 similar cases recorded worldwide.

Maricica and both of her babies are healthy and doing well, they said.

Double uterus

Mircea Onofriescu, director of the maternity unit at Cuza-Voda Hospital in Iasi, said: "It is the first in Romania that twins have been born with a break of 59 days between them.

"In world terms it's also extremely rare."

Twin facts

• The UK's twin rate has increased 5-fold in the last 10 years
• One in 50,000 women has a double uterus
• A 66-year-old Romanian woman became the world's oldest mother last month. She had one baby girl. The other twin died.

Maricica has two uteruses due to a congenital malformation that occurred when she was herself an embryo in her mother's womb.

Professor Bill Ledger, consultant obstetrician at the Royal Hallmashire Hospital in Sheffield, explained: "In the foetus the uterus forms by the fusion of two tubes.

"They come together and then the middle bit between the two breaks down so you get one womb.

"The ends of those tubes persist so you get the two fallopian tubes that naturally head off to each side to the ovary.

"If in the foetus that process does not work properly you get these anatomical variants."

He said many women had a milder form of this - a small bump at the top of the womb where the two tubes did not quite come apart - but that Maricica's case was rare.

But he said such variants could be compatible with normal fertility.

Maricica gave birth to her first son when she was in her seventh month of pregnancy.

He stayed in intensive care, suffering breathing difficulties.

The doctors decided not to deliver the second baby at that time.

When Maricica was at full term two months later, her doctors decided to deliver the second baby by Caesarean section.

Professor Ledger said: "I think the doctors did the right thing in leaving the other baby in the womb because its chances of having a healthy life are probably better.

"Being born prematurely can be risky."

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Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
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