Twins, Basil. Twins!

Apart from an Austin Powers movie, not all twins are identical. We know that if they are not, then they are called fraternal twins. What happens then when DNA shows that twins have two different dads?! Well, this recently just happened and actually made headline news. A mother of twins filed for child support and then subsequently DNA testing needed to be done on the alleged father to show that he was indeed the biological father for the two children – in this case two girls. However, the DNA test results came back showing that this man was the father to ONLY one of the girls! How is that possible you ask? Well, there’s actually a name for it already and it’s called Heteropaternal Superfecundation (expialidocious) – minus the parenthesis of course…I couldn’t resist.

So basically, one woman just happened to have produced two eggs during her cycle (which is known to happen) and then she has sex with two different men in the span of like a week or so. Obviously from there, one sperm from each different man makes it way to each of her eggs and boom — Heteropaternal Superfecundation — twins with each having a different biological father. The full story can be read here but what a story those kids will have to share as the rarity of this actually happening is something like 1 in 13,000 with cases involving twins and chances of having twins in the first place is 3 in 100 (3%) so you do the math on that one.

They say that number might actually be a bit higher though considering that there are probably more cases out there that are just not documented. I mean think about it, if you’re a happily married couple (or just a happy couple) with a set of fraternal twins (or what you thought were fraternal twins) why would you ever think about having a DNA test done? So unless you are playing “I Never” and your wife raises her hand to sleeping with two guys in the same week during her cycle, then it’s probably never going to come up. The health issues for the children however might be enough reasons to check if you are one those couples with fraternal twins. Knowing that there is a different father with different genetic dispositions and family history changes a lot.

If you want to test your twins – all it takes is a simple mouth swab. Call 1-800-993-1495 today to learn more.