A story about a woman in her twenties who became pregnant again through sexual intercourse during pregnancy—resulting in a rare phenomenon known as superfetation—has gone viral online.
According to the Daily Mail, Taylor Henderson, a 28-year-old woman living in Texas, discovered she was pregnant with two babies while she was already eight weeks into her pregnancy. During an ultrasound at her OB-GYN clinic, Henderson was told there were two fetuses present. She stated that they were not twins; one had been conceived eight weeks earlier, while the other had been created six weeks earlier. Henderson added that she believed the second pregnancy occurred after she had intercourse while already pregnant with her daughter.
Henderson was diagnosed with superfetation, a condition in which a second pregnancy occurs while already pregnant. This happens when two or more eggs are fertilized and implanted at different times within the same ovulatory cycle.
Medical professionals reported that this phenomenon is extraordinarily rare, with an almost zero probability. Globally, only about a dozen cases have been documented.
Unfortunately, in October 2024, although the fetus conceived two weeks earlier was born healthy, the later-conceived fetus was delivered prematurely. Henderson explained that the baby had been growing well, but suddenly, its heart stopped beating, and growth ceased.
Generally, once a woman becomes pregnant, hormonal changes prevent further ovulation, fertilization, and implantation, making a second pregnancy virtually impossible. While typically only one egg is released during a menstrual cycle, superfetation can occur in rare cases when two or three eggs are released at different times during the same cycle.