The Mum Made of TWO Women

The Sun [UK] ^ | November 13, 2003 | Brian Flynn

[quidnunc]

New York – A MUM has stunned the medical world after tests showed she is made up ofTWO women.

And even more incredibly she is NOT the biological mother of two of the children she conceived and had naturally.

Docs found the woman, named only as Jane, was formed from non-identical twin embryos who fused together in her own mother’s womb.

Her blood and some of her organs are made up of her own cells — while other parts of her body “belong” to her unborn sister.

The amazing condition, which baffled doctors for two years, first came to light when Jane was given the bombshell news that two of her three sons did not share her DNA.

That meant they could not be hers — even though docs confirmed her husband was their father.

Finally Jane was diagnosed as a “chimera”, a person made up of two distinct sets of DNA. There have been just 30 known cases, though this is the first described in detail.

Jane’s bizarre story, reported in the New Scientist journal, began when she needed a kidney transplant.

Doctors in the US city of Boston did blood tests on her three sons to see if they might be donors.

Instead they found two of the boys could not be her own. Dr Margot Kruskall of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston told how the results stumped her team and sparked a huge inquiry.

She said: “No-one could figure it out. One suggested Jane had secretly undergone fertility treatment using donated eggs. Another speculated she and her husband had got her sister to conceive with his sperm.”

The breakthrough came when tests on Jane’s brother revealed the sons were all related to her family in some way or other.

They then tested DNA from different parts of Jane’s body, including the thyroid gland, mouth and hair — and were astonished to find they came from two different people.

-snip-

[PatrickHenry]

Thanks for the ping, but I'm stumped for a clever response. I wonder if her internal organs are the same as ours -- two kidneys, etc. She might have extras. Also, I wonder if this "fusing twin" thingie could be an inheritable trait, just as twins can run in families. There really could be evolutionary implications here. But basically it's just creepy.

[facedown]

Some people will believe anything.

[wideminded]

Here is a good short explanatory article on chimeras and mosaicism: link

[Devil_Anse]

Wow, grizzfan, this is fascinating!

So they call this phenomenon "chimera"? I'm gonna go do a search on it!

This reminds me of some of the people pictured in the book "Very Special People". These people had "parasitic twins". It was like Siamese twins, except one of the "twins" was not a full person. Totally WEIRD. Thanks for the ping!

[Old Professer]

If she's like most women, it's somewhere in her purse.

[concerned about politics]

As a Catholic, this makes me wonder about the "ensouled at conception" idea. Does this woman have two souls?

Or multible personalities?

[concerned about politics]

Did you get posted as "most gullible" in your yearbook? :-)

No. It was true. She ALWAYS had her period. They didn't work as team players.

[DWPittelli]

Didn't know this was possible. You'd think a chimerical fetus wouldn't be viable. Immune system attacking body parts, that sort of thing.

I don't know if this is possible, or a hoax. But I am pretty sure that the immune system would not be a problem, as early fetuses exposed to foreign matter while their immune systems are being built, do not reject the foreign matter, but see it as "self."

[gcruse]

Two people, one body.

[WackyKat]

Finally Jane was diagnosed as a “chimera”, a person made up of two distinct sets of DNA

Bit by bit, my theory on the existence of alien/human hybrids gains support......

[knuthom]

And even more incredibly she is NOT the biological mother of two of the children she conceived and had naturally.

Dr Kruskall said the discovery meant there could be many more mums and dads who have no idea they are not their kids’ biological parents.

Those are both ridiculous statements. Even if she has two different kinds of DNA, she is still the biological mother.

[WackyKat]

I wouldn't dismiss what concernedaboutpolitics says so quickly.
Read a book on human anomalies; it is very surprising how much variability there can be in the human body.

[sunryse]

>Other chimeras have shown outward signs such as eyes of >different colours.

Oh Oh Oh, I knew a lady like this once. Had one brown eye and one blue eye. It was freaky to look at her, and I bet she had two different DNA too. Of course this was before we knew anything about DNA.

[lepton]

I recall reading of this in the late 1980s. Described almost exactly the same way.

Twins in reverse.

[Alouette]

Chinese Scientists Create First Human-Animal Embryo

[lepton]

Most of the layout of a person, physically is determined by where the cells are relative to each other at differentiation. If they were already in contact, they'd just have some body parts come from one, and other parts from the other...mostly divided by things like skin and muscle vs. bone or guts.

[knuthom]

She ALWAYS had her period. They didn't work as team players.

I don't think this would be possible. I don't mean she couldn't have two sets of reproductive organs. I mean that they couldn't be on different schedules. The timing of her menstrual periods is dependent on the hormones circulating in her body, which would be the same for both.

[Hildy]

I had a friend (she's the daughter of a VERY famous now deceased magazine journalist) who was experiencing very bad stomach pains. When they went in they found the skull of her unborn twin attached to her ovary.

[Slings and Arrows]

There was a girl in high school that had two viginas.

Shoot, that ain't nuttin'! So do the Yew-nite-ed States - Vi'gina and West Vi'gina.

***whisperwhisperwhisper***

Oh...never mind!