UK woman delivers twin boys 22 days apart in different hospitals, baffles doctors

Kayleigh Doyle delivered her twin boys in different hospitals. (Representative Image)

A woman from the UK baffled doctors after giving birth to twins 22 days apart. That’s not all. She delivered the babies in different hospitals. “To this day, I still can’t find a woman in the UK who can beat 22 days,” Kayleigh Doyle, 22, told SWNS.

Doyle conceived the babies in October 2020 and recalled that all of her scans were normal. She didn’t have any complications till she felt labour pains in March 15, 2021. “I was aware of all the risks that came with having twins. I even paid for private [doctor] appointments because I was so worried about complications,” she said.

“When I hit 22-and-a-half weeks, literally, I was in bed and had the worst pain of my entire life. I wasn’t sure what was going on, so I went to the toilet downstairs, and my waters broke.”

Doyle was rushed to Royal Oldham Hospital and kept under observation for five days, New York Post reported. She gave birth to her first baby, Arlo, naturally on March 20, 2021. Arlo was 17 weeks early and weighed only 1.1 pounds.

He was also stillborn and doctors presumed that he had a blood clot in the placenta may be the cause. “He looked like a normal baby,” Doyle recalled. “[Doctors] sat me down after I gave birth, and told me they weren’t expecting ‘twin two’ to survive, and he’ll probably be born in the next couple of hours.”

However, Arlo’s brother didn’t arrive in a couple of hours and Doyle’s contractions also stopped. She was sent home to rest. “After the trauma of giving birth to my first baby, I was gobsmacked when they said I could go home,” the woman said.

“We had daily check-ups in between the two births. Every day that passed, he’d say he genuinely couldn’t believe it,” Doyle added after changing her doctor.

Miraculously, 22 days later, Astro was delivered via C-section. Doctors decided to perform the surgery after they found a placental abruption, which is when the placenta separates from the inner wall of the uterus, depriving the foetus of oxygen.

Meanwhile, Astro, now 2, weighed 2 pounds at birth. He also suffered complications due to his premature birth, including a hole in his heart and retinopathy, which causes abnormal blood vessel growth in the eyes.

“When Astro arrived, I couldn’t believe he had survived all that time,” the mother said. Unfortunately, two weeks after Astro arrived, the family had to hold a funeral for Arlo. “We’d bought double everything for the babies — two cots, a pram with two seats. It was hard seeing the twin moms I followed on TikTok recording all their milestones,” Doyle remembered.