Chinese Woman Gives Birth to Twins From Different Fathers; Here's the Science Behind This Rare Occurrence

Chinese Woman Gives Birth to Twins From Different Fathers; Here's the Science Behind This Rare Occurrence

In an extremely rare case, a woman gave birth to a pair of twins from two different fathers. The woman from Xiamen City, China, reportedly given birth to twins from separate fathers, one of which is her husband and the other one was her one-night stand partner. According to Chinese news sites, Ms Zhang, director of the Fujian Zhengtai Forensic Identification Centre, checked the paternity test results for the twins and revealed that in a very rare case the woman had given birth to actually twins from different fathers each. The woman's husband had a doubt in his head when he noticed the twins looked very different at birth.

While one of the two babies looked exactly like him, the other one looked completely different and that made him request a DNA test. Reportedly the woman later accepted that she had a one-night stand with another man. The couple later went to register the birth of the twins at a local police station for which they needed a paternity test. After this, the whole story went public, as per reports. The woman reportedly also try to cover up for her actions by accusing her husband of distorting the test results.

Science Behind Giving Birth to Twins with Different Fathers

A condition wherein a woman gives birth to twins from two different fathers is biologically extremely rare. Such a phenomenon is called heteropaternal superfecundation wherein either a woman has sex with two separate partners in an extremely short timespan, or if the woman releases two eggs in a difference of just a few days in the same reproductive cycle. In the second case, the occurrence only takes place if the woman has sex with different partners in the same reproductive cycle. During superfecundation, the fertilization of two or more ova by sperm from two different acts of sexual intercourse, from the same cycle can lead to twin babies from two separate biological fathers.

In the case of triplets, however, there is a possibility of having triplets could have identical twins from the same egg and a third child from an entirely different egg and sperm. However, the occurrence is extremely rare and usually, the average changes are about 2 percent.