Woman with two uteri gives birth to baby girl who only weighs 400g (14 ounces)

Megan Phipps is a 24-year-old mother from Nebraska in the United States. Megan already had two children when she got pregnant for the third time. In her previous pregnancies, the woman had not had any kind of problem, but she was aware of the fact that she had a didelfus uterus, which is a double uterus. It is a condition that affects around one in 2000 women, but only 1 in 50 million women get pregnant in both uteri at the same time. This very rare event happened to Megan, who was convinced that she only had an "active" right uterus. Megan gave birth to two premature babies, who came into the world at 22.5 weeks into Megan's pregnancy. Unfortunately, only one of her two little girls survived, but by doing so against all the odds, just this one baby surviving set a record in the hospital that attended to Megan's birthing.

In order to be born and live viably outside the womb, a fetus must be at least 24 weeks old. Some may survive at 22 or 23 weeks, but these are rare cases where success rates are very low. More specifically, babies born before 23 weeks of gestation have a survival rate ranging from 5% to 6%. Megan's baby girls, delivered at 22.5 weeks, therefore, had a serious fight on their hands to survive when they were born!

Riley was the first to be born, while the next day, Reece, her little sister, arrived. Unfortunately, after 12 days of medical treatment, Riley passed away. The other child, however, continued to fight with all her strength and thanks to the support of all the medical staff, she was able to gain weight and survive. When she was born, she weighed less than 400 grams (14 ounces)!

Reece was born on June 12th and on November 2nd she was finally able to return home with her mom and dad, Dillon Martin. Her stay in the hospital was a long one, but on the other hand, her birth and her survival were a small miracle: "It's a real miracle," said Kallie Gertsch, a nurse who took care of Reece in neonatal intensive care unit, "it's definitely the biggest success story I've seen at this hospital."

The little girl, like many other premature babies, has pathologies and ailments which will require her to return to the hospital in the future, but for now, her return home is to be regarded as a great success. Congratulations to this family!