Mother gives birth to twins one month after having baby

Arifa Sultana Iti was found to have two wombs

A Bangladeshi woman has given birth to twins less than a month after delivering a premature baby boy, according to reports.

Arifa Sultana Iti, 20, gave birth to her first child in February but learned she was still pregnant after being rushed to hospital with stomach pains 25 days later.

Medics performed an emergency Caesarean to deliver the twins, who were healthy, on 22 March.

Doctors said Ms Sultana, who is from a rural village in Jessore district, southwest Bangladesh, was found to have two uteruses.

“The first baby was born from one womb. The two babies born here are from the other womb,” Sheila Poddar, head of Ad-Dwin Hospital’s gynaecology department, told Bangladeshi news website bdnews24.com. “It’s a rare incident. I have seen such a case for the first time. I hadn’t even heard about such an incident before."

In a separate interview with the BBC, Dr Poddar said Ms Iti and her husband Sumon Biswas were “very poor” and had “never had an ultrasound before”.

She added: "She had no idea that she had two other babies. We carried out a caesarean and she delivered twins, one male and female."

Ms Iti from gave birth to her first baby at Khulna Medical College Hospital on 25 February. She told the Agence France Presse news agency that she was happy all three of her children were healthy but concerned about how the family would live on her husband's 6,000 taka (£54) monthly salary.

"I don't know how we will manage such a huge responsibility with this little amount," she said.

Mr Biswas, a labourer, added: “It was a miracle from Allah that all of my children are healthy. I will try my best to keep them happy.”

Uterus didelphys​ - a congenital abnormality which causes the development of two wombs - is rare, affecting about one in 1,000 women in the UK. A fifth of pregnancies in women with the condition lead to premature birth.

In 2006, a British woman with two uteruses gave birth to three babies.

Hannah Kersey, 23, from Northam in Devon, was thought to be the first woman with the condition to deliver viable triplets.