In Rivne, twins were born more than three days apart

Twins were born at the Rivne City Maternity Hospital with an unusual time difference between their births—more than three days. The first to be born, on September 9 at 33 weeks of pregnancy, was a boy named Oleksandr. His brother Andriy was born only on September 12.

“They’re both pretty calm. They sleep soundly through the night,” says their mother, Anna.

The older one, Sasha, was born weighing 1,460 grams and measuring 36 centimeters; the younger one, Andriyko, weighed 1,950 grams and measured 46 centimeters.

The older son was named after his father. From now on, the two Oleksandrs will also share a birthday.

“For us, the ninth is a special date—it’s a double celebration, because my husband’s birthday is on the ninth. And it turns out that our first son was born on his dad’s birthday,” explains Anna.

Anna is 33, and Oleksandr is 38. The couple has been together for over a decade, and only now have they become parents for the first time—to two sons at once. However, they didn’t expect the boys to be born as early as the 33rd week of pregnancy. Once the first boy was in the doctors’ care, they decided to delay the delivery of the second.

“We were able to do this because Anna had dichorionic diamniotic twins. What does that mean? It means that each of the boys had his own placenta and his own amniotic sac—in other words, each boy had his own little home where he lived and developed on his own. So after the first baby was born, the second boy still had his own placenta and amniotic sac, which is why we were able to prolong this pregnancy,” explained Tetyana Illiuk, the doctor on duty in the maternity ward at the Rivne City Maternity Hospital.

Doctors explain that they decided to take these non-standard measures for the sake of the second child. For premature babies, every extra day in the womb is critically important. Over the course of three days, Andriyko managed to grow significantly stronger.

“The first baby required invasive respiratory support—that is, mechanical ventilation. A ventilator kept the baby breathing for a certain period of time. The second boy, however, who stayed in the womb for at least three days longer, was able to breathe on his own and bonded with his mother more quickly than his older brother,” says Olga Kysilchuk, head of the neonatal intensive care unit at the Rivne City Maternity Hospital.

Doctors continue to monitor the babies’ condition.

Delayed delivery is a rare practice in obstetrics. However, this is not the first such case for the Rivne City Maternity Hospital: four years ago, twin girls were born here with a difference of as much as six weeks between them.

This is reported in a segment for the “Yedyny Novyny” news marathon. Just a few days ago, the boys were transferred from the intensive care unit to a shared ward.

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