Woman gives birth to twins with different fathers

A woman in Brazil was stunned to discover her twins had different biological fathers (Representative Image)

A woman claims to have given birth to twins with different biological fathers after having sex with two men on the same day. The rare case from Brazil was reported by several international news outlets.

According to The Mirror, the 19-year-old woman decided to take a paternity test to confirm who the father of her babies was. The results of the test, however, left her stunned.

“I didn't know this could happen,” she said after finding out that her twins had different fathers.

“I was surprised by the results. I didn't know this could happen. They are very similar,” said the woman, who did not wish to be identified. She said her babies looked very similar initially, but when they were around eight months old, doubts began to emerge about their ancestry.

She then asked the man who she thought was their father to provide a DNA sample. Much to her surprise, a paternity test revealed that he was the father of only one of the twins.

Cases of twins with different fathers are extremely rare, but not unheard of. This phenomenon is known as heteroparental superfecundation.

The woman’s doctor, Tulio Jorge Franco, said her case is extremely rare, describing it as “one in a million.”

“It is possible to happen when two eggs from the same mother are fertilised by different men. The babies share the mother's genetic material, but they grow in different placentas,” Dr Franco told local news outlet Globo.