Twins Born More Than Three Weeks Apart in Rare Delayed Delivery

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Jun 13, 2014   |   4:12PM   |   Washington, DC

Normally twin newborns are born minutes or, at most, hours apart. But in this rare case, Alexandre is more than three weeks older than his brother Ronaldo.

So what happened to cause it so one twin had to be purposefully delayed in his birth compared to his brother?

Here’s more on the story:

twins23The challenge began when mom Linda DaSilva went into labor only 24 weeks into her pregnancy. Doctors at Tufts tried to stop the contractions. But four days later, a very premature Alexandre was born.

“We were praying to hear his cry and we did. And it was a relief because knew there was 50 percent chance of not surviving,” said DeSilva.

Doctors placed baby No. 1 in intensive care and told mom and dad it was time to consider keeping baby No. 2 in mom’s womb a little longer.

“I thought it was absurd. I said ‘I don’t think, I didn’t know this was possible,'” DeSilva said.

But doctors explained a delayed twin delivery could be done and DeSilva was a perfect candidate. A healthy Ronaldo would be born 24 days later, weighing in a full pound more than his big brother.

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