活久見，孕媽生下兩個雙胞胎——相隔11周

More often than not, human twins are born within minutes of one another. But sometimes, the delay between baby arrivals can get extended to days, weeks… or even much longer.

通常情況下，雙胞胎在幾分鐘內相繼出生。但有時，嬰兒出生之間的延遲會延長到幾天、幾周……甚至更長。

In an extremely rare case in Kazakhstan, a woman gave birth to twins who were born almost three whole months apart – with 11 weeks passing between the births of a baby girl, Liya, on May 24, and her brother Maxim, who eventually turned up this month on August 9.

在哈薩克斯坦的一個極其罕見的案例中，一名婦女生下一對雙胞胎，她們幾乎相隔了三個月——從5月24日的女嬰利亞，到8月9日出生的弟弟馬克西姆，相隔了11周。
Thankfully, the health of the mother, 29-year-old Liliya Konovalova, and her two babies is reported to be fine, but the Kazakh Health Ministry, who shared the news of the births on social media, estimates this unusual and rare case was a one-in-50-million chance.

值得慶幸的是，29歲的母親莉莉亞·科諾瓦洛娃和她的兩個孩子的健康狀況良好，但在社交媒體上分享出生消息的哈薩克斯坦衛(wèi)生部估計，這一罕見病例的幾率為5000萬分之一。

One of the factors behind the incredible time interval between Liya and Maxim's births is that Liya was born very prematurely, weighing just 850 grams when she was born after a gestational period of only 25 weeks.

莉婭和馬克西姆出生的時間間隔如此之長，其中一個原因是莉婭早產了，僅25周就出生了，體重只有850克。

By contrast, when Maxim arrived almost three months later, that extra time in the womb saw him delivered with a healthy birth weight of 2.9 kilograms – more than three times heavier than his 'big' sister.

相比之下，當馬克西姆在三個月后出生時，他在子宮里多出了2.9公斤的健康出生體重——比他的“大姐”重三倍多。

But Liya's premature arrival is only one part of the story. The fundamental reason explaining the twins vastly different birthdays is that their mother Liliya has an extremely rare anatomical condition called uterus didelphys – a uterine malformation that effectively results in a double uterus.

但莉婭的早產只是故事的一部分。這對雙胞胎生日差異如此之大的根本原因是，他們的母親莉莉亞有一種極其罕見的解剖條件，叫做子宮雙螺旋體——一種導致雙子宮的子宮畸形。

When this occurs – which is in less than 0.5 percent of American women – each foetus develops separately in its own uterus, but premature births (and other events, including miscarriage) are a common complication stemming from the abnormality.

當這種情況發(fā)生時——在不到0.5%的美國婦女中——每個胎兒都在自己的子宮中獨立發(fā)育，但早產(以及包括流產在內的其他事件)是由這種異常引起的常見并發(fā)癥。

"My son was in no rush to come out into the world," Liliya told regional media outlets.

“我的兒子并不急于走向世界，”莉莉婭對當?shù)孛襟w說。

"Thanks to our doctors, we prevailed… what they did is a miracle. My kids now weigh around 3 kilograms and we're getting ready to be discharged from the hospital."

“多虧了我們的醫(yī)生，我們成功了……他們所做的是一個奇跡。我的孩子大約有3公斤重，我們正準備出院。”

Often, women with uterus didelphys are unaware they have a double uterus, and when they become pregnant, may be unaware that they are in fact pregnant with twins.

通常，有子宮雙螺旋體的婦女并不知道她們有雙子宮，而她們懷孕時，也可能不知道她們實際上懷了雙胞胎。

Such was the case for a Bangladeshi woman with the condition who gave birth to twins 26 days apart earlier in the year, and whose doctor said he had never "seen any case like this in my 30-year plus medical career".

今年早些時候，一名患有此病的孟加拉國婦女產下了一對相隔26天的雙胞胎，她的醫(yī)生說，“在我30多年的醫(yī)療生涯中，從未見過這樣的病例”。