Woman with two wombs gives birth weeks apart

March 28 (UPI) -- A woman in Bangladesh was found to have two functioning wombs when she gave birth to twins 26 days after giving birth to a single baby.

Dr. Sheila Poddar, a gynecologist at Ad-Din hospital in Dhaka, said doctors at another hospital did not notice anything unusual when Arifa Sultana gave birth to a healthy baby boy in late February.

Sultana was admitted to Ad-Din hospital with lower abdominal pain just under a month later and doctors discovered she was pregnant with twins that were conceived and grown in a separate uterus than her first baby.

"We were very shocked and surprised. I have never observed something like this before," Poddar told the BBC.

Poddar said the condition, known as uterus didelphys, is rare. She performed a C-section on Sultana and delivered healthy fraternal twins, a boy and a girl.

"All three children are safe and healthy," Poddar told CNN. "The mother is also fine."

Experts said the condition occurs in about one in every million women, and its especially rare for it to have not been noticed until the time of birth.

"It is not very common to have two uteruses. When the uterus develops, it comes from two tubes, and those tubes fuse together. For some women, the fusion does not occur, and the dividing wall does not dissolve," said Dr. S.N. Basu, head of obstetrics and gynecology at Max Healthcare hospital in New Delhi.