Overfeeding is a rare condition in which a woman impregnates twins but not exactly at the same time, having a few days of difference in conception. Usually this happens in women who are performing some treatment to get pregnant, such as the use of ovulation inducers, which ends up delaying the interruption of ovulation.
Learn more about the different types of fertility treatments.
In a common pregnancy after conception the woman's body prevents ovulation from happening again and therefore another ovum can not be fertilized. However, there may be some hormonal changes that may cause the woman to ovulate again even if she has been pregnant for a few days, at the risk of being fertilized if she has unprotected sex, and then becomes pregnant with twins, when in reality should be expecting only 1 baby.
How to tell if twins are different ages
The only way to know that twins have different weeks of life is through an ultrasound that indicates that one baby has less development than the other. However, not always that the woman is pregnant with twins in different stages of development means that there was overfeeding.
Initially the woman will not notice any difference and will find that she is pregnant at the normal time when she presents symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, sensitive breasts or delayed menstruation. The doctor may suspect that it is a twin pregnancy when he / she verifies that the levels of Beta HCG are very high and confirms that it is a pregnancy of twins performed the ultrasound. And it is at this hour that overcrowding can be discovered. See the normal levels of beta HCG.
Overfeeding is a very rare condition and usually happens in women who become pregnant due to treatment with hormones.
How it can happen
The pregnancy of twins of different ages can happen because the sperm remains alive inside the uterus for about 3 days. Assuming that the woman was ovulating and there was close contact, if 1 sperm can get into the ovum, there will be conception and this indicates that she is pregnant with only 1 baby.
If for some reason even after this conception the woman presents another mature ovum, if it is fertilized 2 or 3 days later by another spermatozoon that may have come from the same sexual relation or not, she will then be pregnant with the 2nd baby. In that case she will be pregnant with twins and they will be false twins, or twins, because each will have her placenta.
How is delivery?
The most common is that the difference in conception days for each baby is very small and therefore should not influence the time of birth. In any case, if the difference is great, if there is more than 4 weeks of difference between one baby and another, when the new baby is ready to be born the baby should be delivered but this depends on several factors, because the older baby can not spend more than 41 weeks in the womb.
Generally, twins are delivered via caesarean section and need to stay in the hospital for a few days until they are over 2 kg and healthy to be discharged, which is not always the case at the same time.
Check out the care to take during the gestation and delivery of twins.
