Science- Kelsey Hatcher was born with two uteruses, which is extremely rare.
- Hatcher's doctor said only around three out of 1,000 women have a double uterus and double cervix.
A woman in Alabama born with two uteruses is pregnant in both, a development her doctors say is so rare that there aren't really any experts on it.
Kelsey Hatcher, who was born with two uteruses and two cervixes, said she has known for a while that her body is special but was still surprised to learn that she was pregnant with twins, WVTM, a local NBC affiliate, reported.
"I'm typically not one that likes a lot of attention and doesn't want people to be talking about all my stuff," Hatcher told the outlet. "And so to be this rare and kind of out there, I'm like: oh my gosh."
Hatcher, who already has three children, found out she was pregnant in each of her functioning uteri during her first ultrasound last Spring, according to the outlet.
"I said, 'Well, there's two of them in there.' And he said, 'You're lying,'" Hatcher said of the first time she told her husband, Caleb, that she was having twins.
Richard Davis, an expert in high-risk pregnancies at the University of Alabama-Birmingham Hospital, told the WVTM that "way under 1%" of women are born with a double uterus and double cervix.
"Maybe 3 per 1,000 women might have that," Davis said. "And then the probability of having a twin in each one is really crazy."
According to the Mayo Clinic, a double uterus occurs in a female fetus when the two small tubes that typically form together to create the uterus instead develop into individual organs. A double uterus typically causes no symptoms and is usually discovered during a pelvic exam or imaging tests after a miscarriage, the clinic says.
When Hatcher does go into labor, Davis said doctors will have to be very careful to monitor each uterus and determine which one is contracting and if they are contracting together or separately, according to WVTM.