Amber and Levi Nelson, a couple from Birmingham (Alabama), thought they had enough with two girls when they found out she was pregnant. Despite the surprise, they still couldn't imagine what awaited them. When they did the first ultrasound they took a big surprise to detect the beat of three hearts. They were waiting for triplets! But besides, it was about an unusual case of MoMo triplets, named for being the result of a pregnancy Monocorial Monoamniotic, what does it mean that the three shared amniotic and placenta bag.
MoMo twin pregnancies are a very rare condition of identical twins It occurs in one of every 50,000 births, and 75% of cases are pregnancies of girls. But if we also talk about a triple twin pregnancy, the exception is even greater, nothing less than one in 200 million births.
The triplets Norah, Rylan and Remi were born by caesarean section with 34 weeks gestation and all three weighed exactly the same: just over 4 pounds (about 2 kilos), quite small but in very good health. They did not need oxygen or intensive care.
However, the mother, despite having a healthy pregnancy, except for a preclampsia detected in recent weeks, suffered serious problems in childbirth. After the birth of the children, she had a hemorrhage and hours later her heart stopped, but fortunately she was resuscitated, received a transfusion and after a few days hospitalized she was able to return home with her family.
Types of triple twin pregnancy
Recall that all pregnancies of two or more embryos are called twin pregnancies. The twins are "the brothers born from the same birth." That is, every pregnancy of more than one baby is considered a twin pregnancy, whether two, three, four, five, six or even seven.
Within the triple twin pregnancy there are in turn three types depending on the amount of fertilized eggs:
1) three ovules fertilized by two sperm (tricigotic twins), each with its placenta and its bag (Figure A)
2) two ovules fertilized by two sperm cells and one of them again divided into two, two share placenta but each has its own bag (figure B)
3) a single egg fertilized by a sperm that gave rise to three embryos. They can share only the placenta but not the bag (figure C), or placenta and amniotic bag, being a mono-amniotic pregnancy, as in the case of Alabama triplets (figure D).
MoMo triplets
MoMo gestations are very rare. Monocorial means that the babies fed on the same placenta, in this case with three cords, one attached to each baby, and monoamniotic, who also shared the amniotic bag. Inside the mother's womb they are always in skin-to-skin contact since they don't have any separation.
This type of pregnancy is the result of the union of an egg and a sperm that after fertilization it is divided to create two embryos and from one of them it is again divided into two, resulting in three embryos. It happens when the zygote division occurs late, between 8 and 13. day after fertilization.
This type of fertilization occurs in less than 5% of cases of monozygotic twin pregnancies and has the highest mortality rate, close to 50%.
When they originate from the same egg and sperm they share the same genetic material And of course, they are the same sex. That's why they are called identical triplets, which although they are not completely, their physical similarities are usually very large.
