Woman gives birth to twins with different fathers

The woman, whose identity has been withheld, is a resident of Mineiros, Brazil where she told a local media that as the first birthday of the two boys drew closer, she started having doubts over who the father was.

She then decided to take a paternity test to confirm her intuition. Originally, she had suspected one of the men she slept with to be the father of both boys, but when she collected his DNA, it only came out positive for one child.

“I remembered that I had had sex with another man and called him to take the test, which was positive. I was surprised by the results. I didn’t know this could happen. They are very similar,” the new mother said.

Woman gives birth to twins with different fathers Pulse

If that sounds like a miracle, medical experts confirmed that it can happen.

Doctor Tulio Jorge Franco, the mother's physician, said that it is possible for two eggs of one woman to be fertilised by two men but each develops separately.

“It is possible to happen when two eggs from the same mother are fertilized by different men. The babies share the mother’s genetic material, but they grow in different placentas,” he said.

The condition is known as heteropaternal superfecundation but is extremely rare because a second ova is released during the same menstrual cycle and can be fertlised by a different sexual partner.

Franco mentioned that he never thought that he would witness such a situation in his lifetime, calling it a “one in a million”. He claims that only 20 other incidents like this have happened in the world.

Currently, the twins are 16 months old and only one of the fathers is taking care of them.